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PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY 

ALBERT HOBART, Rockland, Mass. 

__ . PRICE 25 OENTS 



POLITICAL 
THUNDERBOLTS 

SEARCH-LIGHTS TURNED ON 
WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOR 

A TWO YEARS' TRIP 

\v 

l()\i:ring every state in the ^ 

UNION 
ASTONISHING FACTS 



rockland, mass. 

Albert Hobakt, Publisher 

1900 



XWO COPIES RECEiVexJ, 

Libnry of e^fii^eliii 

Uif\Q& 9f till 

M«v 2 ' 1900 



E~7/i 



61465 

Copyright, 1900 

BY 
ALBERT HOBART 



StCOND COPY, 



PREFACE. 



The author is solicitous in offering this book to the 
public to awaken the American people, if possible, to 
the fact that they are drifting along, unconsciously, into the 
same channels and into the same conditions as exist among 
the old countries of Europe, and get them to realize that 
millionaires are in full control of the law-making power. 
And so long as they allow them to make the laws they must 
expect them to make such laws as will be for their mutual 
benefit, and against the interest of the working class. 

It is the wish of the author that they realize the fact 
that the annexation of Hawaii, the war with Spain, and the 
effort now being made to annex Porto Rico and the PhiJ- 
ippine Islands, is the work of our American millionaires, 
that they may secure a reservoir of cheap labor in the 
United States, and get control of the sugar, hemp, and 
tobacco business. 

It is his desire that they realize that thousands of our 
American boys have been sacrificed in Cuba and the Philip- 
pines for the benefit of trust companies and corporations. 

It is also his desire to show the American people that 
whenever they compete with the foreigner, who comes to 



iv PREFACE. 

our country, or with the products of the cheap labor of for- 
eigners, they must work as cheaply as they or not at all. 

It is his wish to awaken the young American to the 
realization of the fact that in half the States in the Union 
foreigners, who cannot speak or read the English language, 
can vote in six months after they land, while they are 
obliged to wait until they arrive to the age of twenty-one 
years. The facts as given in this little book and conditions 
named are just as the author found them in every State in 
the Union. He cares nothing for criticism, but offers the 
book without fear or favor. 

The Author. 



CHAPTER L 

AMERICA AS WE FIND IT IN 1897. 

HURRAH for Fourth of July, 1897! The 
grand procession has just passed. Every 
flag has been flung to the breeze, and Old Glory 
rules the town. Over ten thousand men in line. 
The old veterans with their gray locks marched 
proudly in front, then came the State Guards, the 
Firemen, tlie Boys Brigade, and many more that 
could not be classed. Behind, sitting proudly in 
his barouche, came the orator of the day. It was 
enough to thrill the heart of any American. 

Let us follow them to the grand park, and learn 
something more about this magnificent country in 
which we live, our free American institutions, and 
our independent and happy people ; where the 
laboring man owns his own home, is the best paid, 
the best housed, and the best clothed of any peo- 
ple under God's shining sun. Everybody cheered. 
The band played "America," and the speaker was 
introduced as the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, member 
of Congress from Stebbinsville. He told us about 
this grand, splendid country, the great plains, the 



6 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

sublime mountains, the great, rushing, roaring 
rivers, and shores lashed by two oceans; about 
the declaration of independence, and that every 
man was born free and equal. He told us about 
liberty, fraternity, and equality. He told us about 
the magnificent statue of Liberty, bearing upon its 
forehead the glittering and shining star of progress ; 
about a united and happy people. He told us 
about the American homes being filled with sun- 
shine and joy ; of the prosperity and patriotism of 
our people ; about a country where the withered 
hand of want was never known ; and I said the 
Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, member of Congress from 
Stebbinsville, has lied. The withered hand of 
want is known in America by millions of American 
people, and the year 1897 has seen more suffering 
and want throughout this country than ever before 
in all her history. 

For proof of this assertion let us note the clip- 
pings from our own American papers. The fol- 
lowing is from the Chicago Chronicle of January 
26, 1897: 

"Fifty thousand persons are in want in the city 
of Chicago. Three hundred thousand are pinched 
through lack of steady employment. These figures 
are estimated as the result of one day's relief work 
by the police force, and are believed to be con- 
servative. There is a wide difference between the 
two classes represented. The 50,000 named are 
those who are suffering from the want of fuel and 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 7 

food ; in the 300,000 are embraced those of the 
working classes who have little or no work through 
the stagnation in business and manufacturing 
lines." 

Here is a report from New York, headed 
"Thousands out of work," "Tramps on the in- 
crease." I will give it to you word for word as 
taken from the paper dated June 20, 1897: 

"Reports collected from every section of the 
country show that there is now a vast army of 
tramps spread over the United States. In almost 
every instance the increase in the number of wan- 
derers has been due to the non-appearance of Mc- 
Kinley's promised prosperity. The total number 
of tramps at present in the United States, accord- 
ing to the most conservative estimates, is fixed at 
336.250. Of these, by far the larger portion are 
men honestly looking for work. The greater num- 
ber seem to center about New York and Illinois. 
The summary by States is as follows: 



Maine 800 

New Hampshire. ... i ,000 

X'ermont 500 

Massachusetts 3,000 

Rhode Island 200 

Connecticut 2,500 



Indiana 33,000 

Ohio 5,000 

Tennessee 3,000 

Kentucky 4,000 

Mississippi i ,500 

Alabama 200 



New York i 10,000 1 Iowa 400 

New Jersey 10,000 j Missouri 12,000 

Pennsylvania 10,000 1 Louisiana 1,000 

Maryland i ,000 Texas i ,400 

Delaware 900 1 North Dakota i ,000 

Virginia i ,203 | Nebraska 5,000 

West Virginia 700 Kansas 10,000 

North Carolina 3,000 ' Montana 2,000 



8 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 



South Carolina. 

Georgia 

Florida 

Wisconsin 

Michigan 

Illinois 



loo 
3,000 
4,000 
5,000 
3,000 
58, 000 



Idaho 

Wyoming. . 

Utah 

Colorado 

Washington 
California . . 



2,000 
1,000 
250 
600 
1,000 
5,000 



One deplorable feature of the reports received 
is that crime has been greatly increased, because 
so many men are without employment. In this 
State, as an illustration, police officials and author- 
ities of penal institutions declare that the number 
of tramps has doubled since last year. Conserva- 
tive estimates based on official figures show that 
this year New York State has 110,000 tramps. 
Records from all over the country show that the 
offenses usually committed by tramps, such as 
petit larceny and vagrancy, have doubled this year 
over figures of last year. 

William McMahon, for eighteen years superin- 
tendent of the Pittsburg Bethel Association of the 
Western Seamen's Friend Society, said to-day at 
Pittsburg : 

" I am satisfied the increase in crime can be 
traced to the increasing number of unemployed, 
hungry men, not only here, but all over the coun- 
try. The recent gathering in Buffalo is an omi- 
nous cloud that will break and cause much trouble 
in this country in a few years. 

" It is estimated that tramps in Pennsylvania 
number at least 60,000. 

" There has been such a marked increase in 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 9 

crime of all kinds, especially theft, forgery and 
burglary in West Virginia, in most cases traceable 
to the inability of the people to make both ends 
meet, that the directors of the State penitentiary 
have asked for bids for cell-rooms to accommo- 
date 100 more prisoners. 

** Of the 3000 tramps in North Carolina most of 
them are said to have come from the West and 
North. Robust men, laborers, and tradesmen, 
daily plod along the streets of the cities seeking 
employment, and are willing to work at almost any 
price. J. W. S. Hervey, painter and contractor, 
says that first-class workmen of his trade at Wil- 
mington would be glad to get employment at fifty 
cents a day. Disheartened men, many of whom 
have dependent families, are forced to become 
tramps, and are leaving the cities to seek employ- 
ment elsewhere to get bread." 

This is not all. We find the following from Mil- 
waukee, Wis., under the same day (June 20th) : 

"At least ten per cent, of the adult male popu- 
lation of Milwaukee is idle, and thousands of men 
walk the streets daily in search of work. The sit- 
uation has been relieved somewhat, during the past 
six weeks, through the usual resumption of build- 
ing operations in the spring; but there are still 
about 12,000 persons receiving aid from the 
county. Tramps were never so numerous in Mil- 
waukee and throughout the State as during the 
past winter, when they swarmed nightly to the jails 



10 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

and police stations in search of lodgings. The 
warm weather, however, has enabled these way- 
farers to sleep in open air, and every night the 
parks in the neighborhood of Milwaukee furnished 
lodgings for hundreds of idle men. 

"There have been only a few instances of riot- 
ous demonstrations on the part of tramps in Wis- 
consin towns. This is attributed by the police to 
the good character of most of the men. Inspector 
Miller of the Central Police Station says that the 
majority of men provided with lodgings in the 
various police stations of Milwaukee were all able- 
bodied and intelligent mechanics, who had been 
out of employment for a long time, and had 
tramped over a large portion of the country look- 
ing for work. He says that among their number 
were included a surprisingly large number of 
farmers and farm laborers. 

" Reports from the mining districts of Lake Su- 
perior reveal a similar story of suffering among 
people who are willing and anxious to work. That 
there have been so few depredations in the absence 
of any measures for the relief of this vast traveling 
army of the unemployed is surprising." 

That is what they said in Wisconsin on June 20, 
1897. But this is not all. Here is an article from 
Michigan, headed, " Thousands Idle in Detroit," and 
this is dated Detroit, Mich., June 20th. It says: 

" Michigan tramps are a well-behaved lot. 
There are something like 3,000 of these gentry 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. n 

scattered through the 600 towns and villages in the 
State. They commit the petty depredations gen- 
erally credited to tramps the country over. In the 
country hen-roosts suffer as they do in the vicinity 
of camp meetings, when the colored brother is 
worshiping his God by shouting and prayer. De- 
troit is unusually free from the pest. There are 
several thousand men in this town out of work. 

''There is no denying the question that the 
times, despite the promises of protection and pros- 
perity, are hard. The other day a down-town 
street was torn up preparatory to repaving. The 
applicants for work outnumbered the lucky few 
forty to one." 

Only think of it ! forty applicants for every job 
in the State of Michigan; and it is the same all 
over the country. 

Here is another from St. Louis under the same 
date : 

" Statistics of the Provident Association and 
other benevolent societies here show that never be- 
fore has there been such widespread destitution as 
at the present time. This want was, of course, 
more acute during the winter months, but it exists 
now, although it is scattered over a greater terri- 
tory, and is not so intrusive. Thousands of men 
who eked out a miserable existence with the assist- 
ance of organized charity during the winter, are 
now scattered over the country adjacent to St. 
Louis. With the advent of warm weather they 



12 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

have taken to the fields, where they may manage 
to shift for themselves by dint of depredation and 
petty robbery. 

" Reports from the interior of Missouri indicate 
that the country is infested with tramps to a de- 
gree unknown heretofore. Farmers complain that 
their meager possessions are no longer safe unless 
unceasing watch is kept, and in some cases the 
wandering mendicants do not hesitate to resort to 
violence. In fact, the tramps have put on a bold 
front this year, and demand what they were for- 
merly wont to beg. Some murders, and numerous 
minor outrages, have been reported since the 
tramping season set in. 

"It is a matter of statistical record that the des- 
titution in St. Louis during the winter just ended 
was unprecedented. The organized charities dis- 
bursed more than double the usual sum, and re- 
cently issued an urgent call for additional funds to 
keep pace with increasing want. During the cold 
weather the number of hold-ups was alarming, but 
the advent of summer has relieved the situation 
somewhat in the city." 

That was the condition in Missouri, and that is 
not as bad as the reports from some other points. 
Here is one from Spring Valley, Illinois. After 
you read it I think you will agree with me in say- 
ing that the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, from Stebbins- 
ville, lied when he told us this was the best coun- 
try in the world, and that her working people were 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 3 

the best clothed, best fed, and best housed. Here 
is the report : 

''There is no work for tramps, even for their 
board, as fully one-half of regular labor employed 
in this section is to-day idle, and the other half 
working at half wages on half time. The condi- 
tions at present are deplorable; worse, in fact, than 
ever experienced in this section. There is much 
suffering among the poor, and county aid is doled 
out very sparingly; families of four, five, and six, 
getting but from four to eight dollars a month to 
live on. Many of the miners who were earning 
fair wages here a year ago have gone back to Eu- 
rope to remain there until the expected good 
times arrive. In this locality alone fully 500 men 
have returned to the old country, most of them to 
Italy." 

That was the situation on June 20, 1897, at 
Spring Valley, Illinois. Men going back to Eu- 
rope to better their condition. If times improve 
in the next few years they will all return in time to 
vote for Bryan in 1900. 

Here is one from the New York World on the 
condition of workwomen at Paterson. It says : 

"There are women in the flax mills at Paterson 
who work ten hours a day ankle deep in dirty 
water, and breathe an atmosphere like that of a 
Turkish bath. They receive $5.70 a week. There 
are other women in these same mills who work 
ten hours a day, and with every breath take into 



14 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

their lungs a fine dust that breeds early death, as 
as surely as do germs. They receive $4.50 a 
week." 

This is not all. Here is another on the homes 
of the New York poor : 

"The alleged home of a New York tenement 
house worker consists, usually, of two small rooms 
poorly lighted, the sanitary conditions of which is 
a mockery and disgrace to our modern civilization. 
The family live, eat, sleep, and make cigars in these 
pest-holes called ** homes." Little children are 
compelled to eke out an existence in the midst of 
such surroundings, living in an atmosphere reeking 
with foul air and the fumes of tobacco in its vari- 
ous stages of preparation, and a moral atmosphere 
which appeals to humanity for redress." 

Here is one from St. Louis, sent as a special to 
the Chicago Re cord y]\xw& 23, 1897. This caps the 
climax: 

"So weak from starvation that she was unable 
to walk Mrs. Kate Haffner, aged sixty-three years, 
was taken to the hospital to-day. She had been 
trying to earn her living by making jean trousers 
at fifteen cents a dozen. She could only earn 
eight cents a day, and was starving when discov- 
ered by the neighbors." 

The "Song of the Shirt" was written in 1857. 
Cannot some one give us the song of the breeches 
for 1897? Go where you may in this land of the 
free and home of the brave, east, west, north or 







- yS^J^Qp'TU-DLBVUfL.— 



COMPETING FOR THE MARKETS OF THE WORLD BY MAKING PANTS 
AT 15 CTS. PER DOZEN. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 5 

south, and you find the laboring people in nearly 
the same condition as this St. Louis woman. A 
thousand volumes of this size could be filled, giv- 
ing the sad conditions of working men and work- 
ing women in the United States, and then the half 
would not be told. 

Let me give you a letter written by Secretary 
Ryan of the United Mine Workers of Braidwood, 
Illinois, to Senator Mason. The labor man ap- 
peals to the senator to abandon his war with 
Spain over Cuba, and turn to the misery at home. 
He says : 

" Allow me to call your attention to the fact 
that 40,000 of your constituents are waging an 
unequal contest in their battle for bread. I allude 
to the coal miners of the State of Illinois, who are 
now in a state of semi-starvation, brought about 
by a series of circumstances over which they have 
no control. The insane system of competition in- 
augurated by the coal operators — many of whom 
occupy front pews in our leading churches — has 
brought about a condition of suffering and desti- 
tution among the miners which has never been 
equalled in the world. 

"We have been forced to accept reduction after 
reduction in the price of mining until the price 
now being paid is so low that miners cannot earn 
over seventy-five cents a day on an average, and 
then the miners work only about half the time. 
Supposing we put the average wage at $1.00 per 



1 6 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

day, and the miners work three days per week, 
this would give the miners about $12.00 a month, 
which is a fair average. 

'•Taking a family of five, the good housewife 
must furnish fifteen single meals or 450 meals per 
month. Dividing $12.00 by 450 we find that the 
miner's wife has the magnificent sum of 2 and f^cts. 
per meal. This is not taking into consideration the 
fact that people in mining communities wear 
clothes, pay house rents, doctor bills, and several 
other items of expense too numerous to mention. 

" There is no laboring man on earth who works 
harder or who needs more good, substantial food 
than the miner, and we find he is compelled to 
labor all day, sometimes in mud and water, on 
food furnished at less than eight cents per meal. 
The Cuban patriot who is battling for his freedom 
is not exposed to any more hardships or danger 
than is the man who goes down into the bowels of 
the earth in search of the black diamonds ; and I 
doubt if there have been any more lives lost or 
soldiers wounded in the Cuban army than there 
have been miners killed or injured in the mines of 
Illinois since the insurrection commenced. 

" I am certain there are no more women or chil- 
dren hungry in Cuba at this moment than you will 
find among the miners' families in Illinois. 

'* The officials of the United Mine Workers of 
Illinois have made four unsuccessful attempts to 
interview Governor Tanner on this question. Each 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1/ 

time he was too busy. Between Allen bills, gas 
bills, and apportionment bills, his time was all 
taken up. He has already forgotten the pledges 
he made last fall when threshing around after votes. 
Hoping this appeal to you may not fall on deaf 
ears." 

How is it possible for men all over this country 
like the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, from Stebbinsville, 
to come before the people with such swash ; it 
seems mockery. 

Even in the Southern States where the people 
ought to be prosperous if anywhere, living as they 
do in a climate that requires so little to keep them 
at least comfortable, we find it no better. The 
small farmers who rent land are is debt. 
4f Two years ago with the largest cotton crop ever 
raised not one in ten paid out at the end of the 
year. Where land can be bought at from one tc 
five dollars per acre it is impossible for men rent 
ing land ever to accumulate enough to own a farm 
of their own, unless the conditions are change^^ 
The over production of cotton has brought tn- 
price to a point where it is no longer profitable to 
raise it. The cry over the South for the past four 
years has been, " Reduce the acreage of cotton." 
Every paper in the Southern States has been 
urging this plan, and asking the farmer to diversify 
his crops. Conventions have been held in nearly 
every cotton State to devise plans for this reduc- 
tion in acreage of cotton. But what can they do 



1 8 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

to reduce it? the South is not a corn country, or a 
wheat country. The average crop of corn per 
acre throughout the South is only a little above 
twelve bushels, while the average in Kansas, Iowa, 
Illinois, and Nebraska is over forty bushels. How 
can the South compete with these States in the 
markets ! Simply impossible ; yet the South has 
been compelled to increase their acreage of corn 
in order to have bread. Not one renter of land in 
ten in the Southern States have wheat bread more 
than once a week ; corn bread is their staple. 
Notwithstanding their yield is only thirteen bushels 
per acre they are forced by the low price of sugar 
and cotton to raise corn, and we find the prediction 
already made that the cotton and sugar States will 
produce this year the enormous amount of 500,- 
000,000 bushels; thus showing the large increase 
in corn acreage in the cotton and sugar States. 

The Western States are in as bad conditions as 
the South. Corn brings only about twelve to four- 
teen cents per bushel at the farms in Kansas, Iowa, 
or Nebraska. The crop of 1896 was the largest 
ever raised. The yield was enormous, yet the en- 
tire crops on thousands of farms in these States 
did not sell for enough to pay the rent. This is 
no dream. I have the names of many of them. 
Can you tell me how it is possible for a farmer 
renting land in these States to ever own a farm, 
when with the largest crops ever raised on the land 
would not sell for enough money to pay the rent? 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 9 

If you can, I will be greatly obliged. The farmer 
who sells his milk to the creameries has not re- 
ceived enough out of it to pay fair wages for milk- 
ing. Only think of a farmer getting out of bed at 
two o'clock in the morning with the thermometer 
fifteen degrees below zero, milk his cows and then 
cart it from eight to ten miles for seven cents per 
gallon ! Can you tell me how long it will take 
that man to pay for a farm? 

The Chicago Chronicle has told you about the 
conditions in the North. They tell you that one- 
fourth of the entire population of Chicago are 
unable to earn bread where they are willing to 
work. God knows it is as bad as it can be ! 

In the East it is just the same, The New York 
World XgWs you 1 10,000 men are out of work, and 
on the tramp ; factories closed, and wages cut. 

You must not think that these times are only 
effecting those who labor with their hands. The 
wages of all clerks in every city and town in this 
country have been cut so low that it is impossible 
for them to save a dollar. They are obliged to 
dress well in order to hold their positions, and in 
ninety-nine cases out of every hundred it is all 
they can do to keep up. The average pay of the 
clerks in the United States is not more than ninety 
cents a day. Young men are working from six 
o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night 
in thousands of stores all over this land for from 
fifteen to twenty dollars per month. If they should 



20 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

quit there would be fifty applications to every job. 
The traveling men everywhere have been cut 
nearly one-half, and thousands of old men are 
without a job of any kind. Young men out of 
work at the factories are bidding for the places of 
the old men. They are bright, well-educated, and 
know the business. They are out of work, and 
they take what they can get. It is the same in 
every branch of trade. It is worse with the man- 
ufacturers. I am confident that seventy-five per 
cent, of all the manufacturers of this country have 
lost money the past three years, and fully one-half 
of the balance have not more than kept even. 
Thousands of mechanics have left the shops, and 
taken to the fields. More corn has been raised in 
New England than ever before, notwithstanding 
the low price. Land that had not been turned for 
forty years has been planted with corn. You 
don't know why, do you ? Well ! I can tell you. 
Because the poor fellows were out of work, and 
could not get a job at any price. This forced 
them to raise corn. 

The same may be said of the South. The 
Southern people could not make a living raising 
cotton and sugar, and were forced to raise corn 
and wheat in order to live. Carpenters, brick- 
masons, clerks, railroad men, traveling men, 
school-teachers, and men from every conceivable 
occupation have been forced into the fields to raise 
corn and wheat, and still there are men who won- 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 21 

der why the price of corn, wheat, and cotton is at 
a low figure. I am surprised that corn will bring 
ten cents in Kansas. I am surprised that cotton 
brings four to five cents per pound in the South. 
I am surprised that there is any market for it at 
all. And when the corn, wheat, and cotton plant- 
ers of this country learn some sense the price 
may advance, and not till then. 

Interest on deposits at the banks have been re- 
duced frcm five and six per cent, to four per cent., 
and the banks are full of money in every county in 
this land. No one wants to build anything. No 
one wants to buy land. No one wants to do busi- 
ness if he can get out, and it would have been 
better for thousands of merchants if they had 
stopped business four years ago, and lived off their 
capital. They would have had more money to- 
day. Thus we have summed up the conditions 
of this country as it has been the past four years, 
and the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell lied when he told 
us that this was the best country in the world. 
Thus endeth the first lesson. 



CHAPTER IL 

A VISIT AMONG THE TOILERS. 

LET us now talk with the hard-handed sons of 
toil of this country, and learn from them 
about the trouble and hard times. We will go in- 
to the cotton fields of Georgia and Mississippi, 
out among the sugar growers of Louisiana and 
Texas, into the mines of Pennsylvania and the 
workshops of New England, out among the corn 
fields of Illinois and Iowa. We will visit the 
wheat growers of Minnesota and the Dakotas. 
We will talk with the men who run the trains, and 
the men who forge the iron and steel ; with the 
clerks and porters in the stores and warehouses. 
We will meet the traveling men on the trains, and 
we will talk with the leaders of the labor organiza- 
tions. Let us learn from their own lips about this 
trouble and the remedy. 

Listen for a moment to Eugene V. Debs. He 
says: 

"It is to change existing conditions, and to find 
work for the unemployed that our new movement 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 23 

has been started. The crisis is supreme. Some- 
thing must be done, and that at once. There is 
no hope of relief from Congress. The American 
Railway Union will move on peaceful and patriotic 
lines to solve the problem. To find labor and 
food for tens of thousands now in distress is our 
aim. There is room for all in the West, and we 
propose to get them there. That tramps are un- 
usually numerous this year is the direct result of 
the protective tariff system. So long as this coun- 
try fosters unhealthy over-production by means of 
the tariff, we will have the tramp issue in ever in- 
creasing force to wrestle with." 

That is what Eugene V. Debs says, and remem- 
ber he is President of the "American Railway 
Union." 

Now I wish to give you the explanation, as 
made by Joseph Greenhut, City Statistician, for 
the remarkable army of tramps that is sweeping 
over the Western country this year. He says : 

"Factory hands and mechanics must face an es- 
tablished condition of affairs which is well under- 
stood by all thinking men who have studied the 
situation. Under a protective tariff factories, and 
other places where labor is employed, have in- 
creased in number until their product is larger 
than the demand. The result is these workshops 
cannot be kept running on full time. Hours are 
shortened, and in many places employment is 
given for only seven or eight months in the year. 



24 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

Those who are provident may be able to tide 
themselves over this idle season. Those who are 
not must get out and seek new fields of labor. 
Thus we have the tramp, not the chronic, idling 
vagabond, but honest mechanics on the hunt for 
work. These are unusually numerous this year 
from the cause given, and the conditions will grow 
worse instead of better, until a radical remedy is 
applied. This remedy, I think, lies in free trade, 
and the narrowing of production to meet actual 
demands." 

This is the cause and the remedy as given by 
Joseph Greenhut, and I advise you to read it the 
second time. Do not forget that he tells you the 
tramps are honest mechanics on the hunt for 
work. 

We will now go out among the farmers of Kan- 
sas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. 
The question I asked them was: "What do you 
want to bring you prosperity?" The answer was 
prompt and decided, ''We want a higher price for 
our corn and wheat." *' Well, then, if you could 
get the prices for your corn, wheat, and other 
produce you did a few years ago, you would be all 
right, would you ? " " Yes," they said ; " we could 
then live and save something. A few years ago 
I have known men to buy a farm in this State and 
pay for it in six or seven years ; now we could not 
raise money enough to pay interest on the mort- 
gage." " Yes, my friends," I said, ** but interest is 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 25 

lower now, and everything you buy is low." ''We 
know it is, but not in proportion to what we pro- 
duce." " Well ; what do you think is the matter ? " 
I asked. " Why," they said ; " the monetary sys- 
tem of our Government is against the working 
people. We need more money, and with free 
coinage of silver, on a ratio of sixteen to one, it 
would give us more money. There would be more 
money in circulation, and we could get more 
for our grain. The laws of this country are all 
made by the rich men for the rich men. They 
are taking the life's blood from the poor. They 
are buying up all the land, and hold it at prices 
they know a man can never pay. The manu- 
facturers with their tariff for protection dictate to 
us the prices we shall pay. Wall Street together 
with the trusts and railroads run the country." 
This is the substance taken from sixty-four con- 
versations with farmers in the above States. 

Now let us go East and talk with the employees 
of the factories. On my arrival in Boston there 
was to be a meeting of Union Labor, and thinking 
we might learn something new we walked overto the 
hall. That big fellow with the plug hat smoking 
that cigar is the speaker. " But," says my friend, 
"that man is not a laboring man is he?" "Oh, 
no ; he is the President of the Union. He has 
$5,000 a year to tell them when they shall strike, 
and make a speech once in a while." " The time 
has come," replied my friend, "when no man can 



26 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

become a senator or congressman in this country 
unless he be a millionaire. They buy the office at 
ten times its value, and make millions by the pur- 
chase. They demonetized our silver — the poor 
man's money — in 1873, and they are not even 
now satisfied. They cut our wages, and if we 
strike they then turn the guns of the country upon 
us, and shoot us down like dogs. They impose a 
duty upon us on everything we eat or wear. It is 
time to take matters into our own hands, and fight 
for our rights." 

We visited a number of the factory towns in New 
England, and found many out of employment en- 
tirely, and others working on half time. We 
saw a man coming out of one of the factories, and 
as he looked like a sensible fellow we interviewed 
him. "I see you have just come out of that fac- 
tory, do you work there? " *• Yes; I have worked 
there over fifteen years. I do not have work but 
three days a week now." ** How is your wages 
compared with four years ago?" "I can only 
earn $1.25 a day now, while four years ago I could 
earn $2.50 a day. I work by the piece, and if 
they keep on cutting the price every month there 
is no telling what they will want us to work for 
after a while." "Well, what do you think is the 
trouble?" "Why; the bosses want to make more 
money, and every time they cut our wages that is 
so much in their pocket." " But I see that factory 
across the street is closed, what is the matter with 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 2/ 

them?" '*Oh, they failed about a year ago, and 
have not started up." ** Do you think they will 
start up soon?" "No; the owner committed sui- 
cide soon after he failed." " Well, I have noticed 
several factories closed about the town." "Yes; 
they all failed." "Do you think the Dingley Tar- 
iff Bill will help business?" "No; it will only 
make things higher, and make it still harder for 
the working man. The rich have it their own way. 
They can make us work for whatever they please." 
"Why don't you strike?" "That would do no 
good ; half the town is idle and waiting for a job 
at any price." " Do you think the free and unlim- 
ited coinage of silver would help you?" "Yes; 
if we had more money we would make these fac- 
tory bosses give us what we wanted." 

We next visited the States of Pennsylvania, In- 
diana, and Illinois. The great strike of the coal 
miners was on, and we had the opportunity of 
witnessing the great battle of the poor for a chance 
to exist. Three hundred thousand men on a 
strike, and that, too, without the least chance to 
get their demands. We noticed a crowd of miners 
standing on the street corner, and started in at 
once to interview them. We introduced ourselves 
to the one who seemed to be the leader (and, by 
the way, about the only one who could speak the 
English language), and asked him what wages 
they had been receiving. He told us the amount, 
and through him we got the wages of each man. 



28 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

There were thirty-nine in the group, so we made 
an average of the whole, and found it to be $5.74 
per week. And taking into consideration the time 
lost by the closing of the mines the past year we 
found the average pay they had received for the 
year was just $203.90. 

Think of this, ye men of America, and think 
also that these very men worked hundreds of feet 
below the surface of the earth, where the sunlight 
of God has never reached. Think, also, that some of 
these men had families of from five to six looking 
to them for support. Then swing to the breeze 
the American flag with its forty-four shining stars 
and shout: *♦ Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! " All 
the languages of the world could not describe the 
agonies suffered by the working men of this coun- 
try the past four years. As I stood at Sandy 
Creek Valley on the 14th day of July, 1897, and 
looked at these poor, ignorant miners, I said again 
that the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, of Stebbinsville, 
had lied. 

I asked these men if they thought they would 
win in this strike. They said they were sure to 
win if they could prevent new men from taking 
their places. I asked if the men who were taking 
their places came from other mines. They said 
very few came from other mines ; that they were 
mostly men out of work, tramping around the 
country hunting for a job. I asked if they thought 
there was any legislation needed to benefit the 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 29 

miners. They said Congress should pass laws 
compelling the mine owners to pay the men fair 
wages. They said the mine owners were forming 
trusts to make slaves of the men. 

We took the train at Spring Valley for a two 
weeks' trip through the South. We met many 
traveling men along the route, and questioned 
them closely in regard to their trade. We wish to 
say right here that the traveling men are the best 
posted, the most intelligent of any class in the 
world. They come in contact with every class of 
people. They know the standing of nearly every 
man in their territory, whether he is making or 
losing money, and the reasons why. They know 
the condition of the crops, and the prices received. 
They read more than any other class of men. 
They meet at the hotels and on the trains, and 
discuss every topic of the day, every law of the 
country. 

We learned from them that hardly a merchant 
as far as they knew had made anything the past 
four years. They gave me the name of a clothing 
merchant living in a town of 25,000 inhabitants 
who had plenty of money to run his business, and 
in past years had made money; but that during 
the past four years had lost over a thousand dol- 
lars a year, and he was considered one of the best 
business men in their territory. They went on to 
explain the cause. When the hard times came on 
the smaller dealers began to cut their prices. This 



30 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

they were obliged to do in order to sell goods 
enough to meet their bills. After a while many 
went to the wall. Their goods were thrown on the 
market and sold at less than half their cost. This 
of course kept the others from making anything, 
and finally they too were forced to fail. Not one 
of all the traveling men we met knew of a single 
merchant who had made any money the past three 
years. 

One gentleman gave me a full statement of his 
factory for each year for the past five years, and 
here it is : For the year ending Jan. i , 1 893 , profits 
$12,000. For the year ending Jan. i, 1894, 
loss $1 ,169.50. For the year ending Jan. i , 1 895, 
loss 4,620. For the year ending Jan. i, 1896, loss 
$2,140. For the year ending Jan. i, 1897, 
loss $1,725. This factory is incorporated, and 
under the laws of the State is obliged to make a 
full statement of the business each year. This 
is a fine showing for a factory, with a capital of 
$50,000, and one, too, that had been in business 
over twenty years; and up to Jan. i, 1893 had 
never failed to declare a dividend. 

Among all these traveling men not one was re- 
ceiving as much salary as in 1893. I asked them 
what they thought was the cause of these hard 
times. Most of them contended it was caused by 
the Wilson Bill and over production. I asked 
them if they thought the Dingley Bill would give 
relief. Many of them thought it would in time, 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 3 I 

but not to the extent they claimed. Most of 
them expected to see times improve, but never 
expected the good times and high wages of years 
past. None were in favor of the free and unHm- 
ited coinage of silver on a ratio of sixteen to one. 



STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 

We are now in the State of Mississippi, and it 
is intensely hot. It seems as if the sun was with- 
in a few feet of our head. There is an old col- 
ored man working out there in the field ; we will 
interview him. He has with him his wife, four 
boys, aged four, eight, nine, and thirteen years, 
and seven girls, aged one, two, seven, ten, eleven, 
twelve, and fourteen years, 

"Are these all the children you have, uncle?" I 
asked, "This is all I got left, boss. The chim- 
ney fell down and killed a whole raft of them. 
Yes, this is all I got left, boss. Yes, it is mighty 
late cropping cotton, boss ; but the big flood come 
in de spring and just ruined us. Des whole coun- 
try was under water when de planting time come 
on. Big boats come right cross that big field 
yonder." "Do you expect to make much cotton 
this year, uncle?" "Well, boss, you can't tell. 
If de frost holds off till late spects we will make a 
big crop. The big rise helped des land mightily." 
"How long have you lived on this land, uncle?" 



32 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

" Boss, Ise ben right here since de war." '* Do you 
own this land?" *'No, boss, Massa Hamilton he 
own all des land just as far as you can see, and 
more too." "How is it, uncle, you do not own a 
farm, you say you have been working here ever 
since the war?" " Well, boss, you see it takes all 
the crop to pay de rent and de 'vances." '* What 
rent do you pay for this land, uncle?" ** I pays 
one-third de cotton and one-fourth de corn." 
"Where do you live?" "I lives in dat ar cabin 
you sees yonder." " I do not see how you get 
along with your large family in that small cabin. 
How many rooms are there in the house ? " *' Only 
one, boss." Cotton five cents a pound, and pay- 
ing one-third of the crop for the rent of the land, 
when will that old darkey own a farm ? Can you 
answer the question? 

I asked if there were any white men on the 
place and was told there were three white families 
renting land from Mr. Hamilton. " I suppose, 
uncle, they have a better house to live in than you 
do." "'Bout de same, boss, 'bout de same." 

Here was a family all working in the field with 
not clothes enough on them all to made a good- 
sized mop ; living in a little cabin not over eigh- 
teen feet square ; not seeing a dollar from one 
year's end to the other ; without any hope for the 
future, and I wondered what he thought was the 
matter. He was a citizen, and a voter in this grand 
Union with its Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 33 

I asked him what he thought was the reason we 
had such hard times, and if he thought we needed 
any legislation to help the people. ** 'Fore God, 
boss, I think des world is too wicked. De people 
ought to pray more." " I am not talking about 
religion, uncle. I want to know if you think a 
protective tariff would help this country, or do 
you think free trade or free silver would help 
more?" " Free silver, boss, free silver, dat's what 
we want. Money what de rats can't chaw." "Did 
you vote for McKinley or Bryan last fall?" "I 
votes for Bryan. I votes for Bryan every time." 
"Then you are not a Republican, uncle." "Yes, 
Ise a 'Publican. I votes 'Publican all de time." 
"Why, you just told me you voted for Mr. Bryan. 
Now you say you are a Republican. How about 
that? You did not vote for McKinley and Bryan 
both, did you?" "Yes, I did, boss, voted Mc- 
Kinley and Bryan too." "Who made out your 
ticket you voted last fall?" " Massa Hamilton he 
makes out all de tickets on de place." 

We then rode over to Mr. Hamilton's house, the 
owner of the plantation. We found him sitting out in 
front on what they call in that country the gallery, 
— or piazza as we call it, — reading a paper. Col. 
Hamilton, as he is called in that country, was a man 
about sixty-five years of age, rather tall, iron-gray 
hair, keen black eyes, smooth shaven, and I should 
judged weighed about one hundred and sixty-five 
pounds. He called out to us to light, as soon as 



34 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

we drove up to the gate. He was very cordial, 
and called a little colored boy to get the gentle- 
men a cool drink. 

I started in on my errand at once by stating to 
Col. Hamilton that I was from Pennsylvania, and 
that I was out trying to get at the true conditions 
of the country, and to learn from the people in 
every section, and from all classes outside of the 
politician, what we needed to better the conditions 
of things in this country; what was best for their 
immediate section, and what legislation was needed 
to benefit them individually. I wished to hear 
from him in regard to the conditions in this sec- 
tion, and what legislation was needed. 

The old gentleman became interested at once, 
and I found I had met a man who was educated 
and well informed in the history of this country, 
both political and historical. I asked him first to 
give me the condition in his county. 

''Well," he says, "we will begin right on my 
place. When the war ended I came home ragged 
and without a dollar. I found everything had 
been swept almost clean from the plantation. The 
house had been burned, and my family were living, 
or rather staying in that old cabin you passed 
coming down the hill, near that little branch, back 
about a mile. Most of the niggers were still here 
or near here, half-starved, and with no clothes. I 
called them all up, and told them they were free ; 
that I had no claims on them, and that they could 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 35 

go wherever they wished. But if they wanted to 
remain I would do the best I could for them. 
They all remained except two. 

"We went to work and fixed up the fences and 
put in a crop, and I wish to say that no men ever 
worked better than my niggers did that year. We 
made a good crop of corn and cotton. Prices 
were high, and the next fall we found ourselves 
very comfortable. We repaired the cabins, for 
the hands got themselves well fixed for the winter 
with clothing and shoes, so that things began to 
look brighter. 

"The next year I rented each one on the place 
what land he could cultivate, furnished them with a 
mule and farming implements, and also what they 
needed to eat until the crop was gathered. That 
year in the greater part of the South the crop was 
short, owing to the drought; but we were blessed 
with showers through July and August so our crop 
averaged very well. The price was high, so the 
niggers all had money of their own. Some as 
much as one hundred and fifty and two hundred 
dollars. I tried to talk them into the idea of sav- 
ing something for the time when prices would be 
low, but it seemed the more I talked the more 
eager they were to get to town to spend it. They 
bought everything, except something to eat and 
wear, and they have continued in this same way 
ever since. Soon the price of cotton began to get 
lower, and it has been going lower every year, 



36 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

until the past few years the hands have been get- 
ting in debt to me for provisions. I have made 
nothing, they have made nothing; and I see no 
way to help them, from the fact I have nothing to 
help them with. With the prices of cotton there 
is not a living in the crops. 

"Oh, yes; we raise corn, lots of corn ; but corn 
will bring us no money, and hogs seem to all die, 
so it don't pay to raise them. We have very little 
pasture land for cattle in this country. It would 
pay those who had large tracts of land to raise 
cattle perhaps ; but there are so many renters, and 
it would be impossible for them to rent cattle with 
land. I really cannot see any prospects ahead for 
men who labor in this country. They will no 
doubt manage to exist, but that is about all ; in 
fact, that is all that can be said of them now. 

" There is nothing for the young men to do. 
There are more lawyers and doctors than can get 
a living. The wages paid for clerks in the towns 
would not more than pay board. The merchants 
I do not believe are making both ends meet. The 
outlook to me is very gloomy." 

"What legislation do you think is needed. 
Colonel, to help this country? " 

"Well, I am of the opinion that the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver, on a ratio of sixteen 
to one would give us more money. People would 
then have money in which they would in some way 
invest. I think it would be the means of starting 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 3/ 

factories in the South. It would also give us a 
value on our land. As it is now land has no real 
value. I doubt if I could raise one dollar cash on 
my land per acre. I doubt, even, if I could raise 
fifty cents on a mortgage. Every one who has 
money is holding on to it, and those who have none 
will never get any unless something is done to 
change the condition." 

''What do you think of the Dingley Bill now 
before Congress?" "I think it the greatest out- 
rage ever perpetrated upon the American people. 
That bill was made for the manufacturers and 
trusts, and not for the masses. We want the priv- 
ilege of buying where we can buy the cheapest, 
and selling where we can get the best price." 



STATES OF ARKANSAS AND TEXAS. 

We traveled through the States of Arkansas 
and Texas. Stopping at Little Rock we took a 
team and drove through the country to Fort 
Worth, Texas. This gave us a chance to note the 
conditions among the farmers, and learn their 
mode of living; also giving us an opportunity to 
learn what their views were- upon political ques- 
tions. The people were kind and obliging; noth- 
ing they had was too good for us. It was no 
trouble to get their political views, and they also 
wanted ours, which we declined to give ; but as 



38 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

we took the names of some six hundred we met 
and talked with in the Southern States they will 
likely get our views as we shall mail to each one a 
copy of this book. 

All along the line we heard the same story, 
whether they were Democrats or Populists. We 
also found it was hard to distinguish between the 
two ; both dislike the Dingley Bill, and believe in 
free and unlimited coinage of silver on a ratio of 
sixteen to one. They believe the railroads are a 
trust that makes millions out of the poor by ex- 
cessive rates. They believe Wall Street controls 
all the money of the country, and that none is ever 
allowed to be sent to any part of the world with- 
out their consent. They look upon William J. 
Bryan as the only man that can bring them out of 
their trouble in 1900. 

I found in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, 
Iowa, and Illinois hundreds who voted for McKin- 
ley that swore by all that was great and holy 
that they would never do so again. We have 
now summed up the conditions of the country, 
and we have learned the sentiment of the laboring 
people. 

The trip to me has been a surprise, and as I sit 
here in Philadelphia this beautiful August morning 
reading over the notes I have made and the con- 
versations I had with three hundred and forty 
persons in every part of this country who labor, I 
can do nothing but sit, think, and wonder. It 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 39 

does not seem possible that it can be true. Thou- 
sands upon thousands of men and women in free 
America working from ten to sixteen hours twelve 
months of the year, with scant meals^ little or, you 
might say, no clothing, living in rough board 
houses, no paint, no pictures, no carpets, no music, 
no books, no education, and no future. This is 
what I found, and I believe the trip has done me 
no good. I cannot stop thinking. I cannot rest. 
I lie down at night, and begin to think. I see the 
little pale white women in the South with her hoe 
out in the hot sun helping her husband in the 
field ; the little children sitting in the shade of a 
tree near by playing. I see the little cabin 
where they live on the hill in a grove of oaks. I 
think of the time when they will market the cot- 
ton. The landlord is there at the sale. The 
amount is figured, and he takes the money. They 
go home. I think I hear the conversation when 
the settlement is made at the landlord's house. 

"Well, Lem, the five bales brought $115.50. 
The third of that for rent is $38.50, and your ac- 
count at Jones & Brown's that I stood for is $82.- 
40; that makes $120.90. You owe me $5.40. 
Well, Lem, you done pretty well. You know 
cotton is low. Now you may have a little more 
cotton on that lower patch if the frost holds off, 
and I propose to let you have that. If you do 
not get anything off the patch, long about Jan- 
uary I will fix it so you can get a little at Jones 



40 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

& Brown's on the next crop. You can give me 
your note for the $5.40, and we will let that go 
until next year, may be cotton will be worth some- 
thing then." 

I think I see the little pale woman standing out 
by the fence waiting for Lem to come from town. 
Lem told her he would bring her something. She 
had given him a list of a few things that morning 
for the children : a pair of shoes for each, and 
some cotton jean to make them pants. She had 
measured each foot with a stick, and given the 
sticks to Lem. I think I see them meet at the 
gate, and I see the children climb into the wagon 
to see what their father had brought from town, 
and the surprised look when they found the wagon 
empty. I think I see the tears roll down the little 
pale woman's cheek when Lem tells her the cotton 
did not pay out. 

I see again the tow-headed boys I saw working 
in the field in Nebraska. I see the perspiration 
roll down their faces and drop off their sunburned 
noses. I hear them talking of what they are going 
to have when father sells the corn. Of the new 
sled, the new suit of clothes, the skates that he had 
promised them if they would work well, and about 
the French harp they would get when they went 
to town with father. I heard them talk about the 
price of corn, and hoped it would bring twenty- 
five cents a bushel. About how much money 
father would get for the crop, and what father was 




FOUND THE WAGON EMPTY. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 41 

going to buy for mother. I saw them getting out 
at the dawn of day rubbing their sleepy eyes as 
they went running through the wet grass feeding 
the horses. 

I saw the mother at work in the little shed- 
kitchen getting their breakfast. I saw how tired 
she looked as she moved slowly around the little 
room. 

I saw the father come out and look at the red 
eastern sky, and heard him tell the boys we would 
have another hot day. 

I saw the frail little daughter come out to the 
little wood-pile, and get a few sticks to replenish 
the fire for her mother. I saw how tired and 
sleepy she looked. I saw the already tired horses 
stretch themselves as they were led out to be har- 
nessed. 

I saw again the same little company gathering 
the corn in the fall. The frost was heavy on the 
ground. I saw the red cold feet of the boys, and 
saw them unloading at the bin. I saw the owner 
when he came out to see about his rent. I hear 
him tell the father that it was the largest crop ever 
raised on the farm, but it would not bring enough 
to pay the rent. I heard the father when he told 
him to take it all and release him. I saw the little 
tow-headed boys slip away to tell mother what 
Mr. Roach had said. I heard her tell the boys it 
was just what she had expected. I saw her go 
into the little kitchen, and I heard her sobs. I 



42 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

saw the father sign the whole crop away for a re- 
lease for the rent. 

I look once more, I see a man walking slowly 
home from the factory in a little New England 
town. I saw him enter the door and set his dinner- 
pail on the little table, take a seat, and fold his 
hands across his knees. I heard his wife ask him 
what was the matter. I heard his answer : ** Shop 
is closed." I heard the question : ** What shall we 
do?" I heard the reply: " I don't know." 

I saw again the tears of a mother. I heard 
again the question: **Do you think Mr. Brown 
will let us stay here? you know we owe him for 
five months' rent, and you know, John, we have 
very little to eat in the house, even if he will wait 
on us. What are we to do? Where shall we go?" 
Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! I say, *' Hell and 
damnation ! " 

* 

"PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY THE 
BLESSINGS OF THE WORLD/' 

Every man who works ten hours a day ten 
months in the year should be able to live in a nice 
cottage of his own, with a lawn in front covered 
with trees and flowers. He should be able to 
have carpets on the floors, pictures on the walls, 
papers, books, and music for his children. He 
should be able to dress his wife and children well, 
and in the fashion of the day, and should dress 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 43 

well himself. He should be able to send his chil- 
dren to school with warm comfortable clothing, and 
plenty to eat — the best in the land. He should 
be able to have two months in each year when he 
could visit the woods, lakes, and hills with his fam- 
ily, and visit among his fellow-men. He should 
be able to see, and feel, what God had done. 
There is no reason why this should not be. 

This is the condition I would have for the work- 
ing people of this country. This is the condition 
that ought to exist here. This is the condition 
that might exist. And until that time comes I am 
in favor of taking down the statue now standing 
in New York Harbor, and cut from it the lie, "Lib- 
erty Enlightening the World," and throw the whole 
thing into the sea. 

There is no civilized country on the face of the 
globe where you can find 380,000 men, who are 
willing to work, tramping over the land hunting 
any kind of a job that they may live, except in 
our own land of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. 
No city on the face of the globe with a million and 
a half of population with one-fourth of its inhab- 
itants hungry and cold, and no employment at any 
price, as the Chicago Chronicle tells us was the 
case in that city last winter. No country on the 
globe where a woman made pants for fifteen cents 
a dozen. No country on the globe where the 
people have suffered more for the past four years 
than right here in free America. If you can find 



44 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

a country where their papers tell of such misery 
and woe, as do the clippings I have shown you, it 
ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. And 
remember, too, this suffering in a year when the 
ground had belched forth the largest and grandest 
crops ever known in this country. 



CHAPTER IIL 

** WHERE THE RESPONSIBILITY LIES.^ 

YOU ask me who is to blame for this trouble 
and hard times, and I will answer your ques- 
tion, by saying, The laboring people themselves 
and no one else. I will go further, and say that 
all the ills this country has ever had was brought 
about by the poorer classes of our people. There 
are in the South a million ignorant black men, and 
half as many ignorant whites. There are twice as 
many more throughout the remaining portion of 
our land. In New York city alone there are fully 
a hundred thousand ignorant foreigners, one-half 
of whom cannot speak our language, and never 
will. It is into this lawless, Godless hordes we 
have placed the priceless jewel, the free man's bal- 
lot. The ballot bought with our richest blood, 
and paid for with thousands of millions of gold. 
The ballot, consecrated with untold suffering, sac- 
rifices, and tears. This costly safeguard of our 
nation's life we have bartered away for less than a 
mess of pottage. What the future has in store 
for us God only knows. Attila with his wild horde 



46 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS 

of savage Huns was not more fatal to the life of 
Rome than are the ignorant battalions led on to 
destroy the American ballot. 

Attend one of our labor Conventions if you 
would learn something. Hear them denounce the 
men who are at the head of our Government — 
State and national. Hear them tell about the rich 
who buy up votes, and put themselves into ofhce 
and power. And, mind you, I do not deny the 
statement, for it is a fact. I wish to ask the ques- 
tion : Who do they buy? I will tell you. These 
very men who make these charges, they themselves 
are the ones who sell their votes. The laboring 
people have three votes to the middle and rich 
classes one, so there is no chance for the rich to 
get into power except through the help of the 
poor man's vote. Whoever heard of a politician 
going out among the business and professional 
men to buy votes. They buy in the market 
where they can buy the cheapest. For what 
purpose do they employ ward heelers in our large 
cities? Not to round up the business and pro- 
fessional men, but to buy up the poor, hard-handed 
sons of toil. And by the eternal gods they do 
not work in vain. 

You can hardly go into a city or town but you 
will hear the poor cursing the rich. You hear 
them complain about the laws being made for the 
rich, and the poor man has no justice. I believe 
it is so. I do not deny a single statement. It is 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 47 

a fact, that all the city offices of this country that 
pay a good fat salary are held by men who are 
well-to-do. They never worked, never will ; but 
they are in with the clique, and they get there. 
Now who is to blame for this? The working peo- 
ple have three votes to the rich and middle classes 
one, and I ask. Who put them there? Who makes 
the laws? You say, "The rich man." And I say. 
It is a lie. You voted for him, and he is your 
representative ; and there is not a law on the 
statute books you did not make yourselves. You 
stand by and let these little two by four lawyers in 
your county with a few of their henchmen meet 
in Convention, with a slate already made out in 
advance for their candidate for the Legislature, 
whom the rich men know they can control, and you 
vote for him, and send him as your representative 
to make the laws for you. These same brainless 
little devils you send to the Legislature are your 
representatives, and they elect your senators for 
you. It is the same with your congressmen. You 
are the ones who do the voting. Three votes to 
the other class one, and you never get a smell ; 
and you do not deserve any. 

If you should nominate a working man you 
know as well as I that he could not be elected. 
When one of your fellow workmen asked you why 
you do not vote for the candidate of the working 
people, you would tell him to go to the devil. 
You would tell him you did not ask anyone to tell 



48 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

you how to vote, but you go out and march in the 
mud and shout and hold up the banner on which 
is written, *' Vote for Col. John P. Jones, the 
working man's friend." You are full of Col. John 
P. Jones' whiskey, and you feel as though you was 
worth a mfllion, when you are not worth the powder 
that it would take to blow your little thimbleful 
of brains out. You go to the hall and hear Col. 
Jones speak, and he will tell you what he is going 
to do for the working man. You will cheer and 
throw your hat, and stand on benches with the 
froth running out of your mouth like a mad dog. 
You will keep up the lick all through the cam- 
paign, and when it is over you will meet in Con- 
vention, and curse the country, the Government, 
the laws, and the whole business. You will then 
start a new party, and at the next election you will 
be found again splitting the mud shouting for Col. 
Jones. 

There are thousands upon thousands of working 
people who are not only honest, but are educated 
and refined. They are capable of making laws 
and would make good ones, too ; but they seldom 
meet in the Conventions to formulate new parties 
and new plans. They know full well the needs of 
a change, but they also know there is no con- 
fidence to be placed in you, when it comes to an 
election. 

The working people have it in their own hands 
to make this country a land of joy. They have 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 49 

it in their own hands to dictate to manufacturers 
and trusts the wages they shall be paid. They 
have it in their own hands to live as Americans 
should live. They have it in their power to be- 
come happy, and make their families happy. The 
question is, Will they do it? And as I read over 
my notes and conversations from every State in 
this Union I answer, No ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REMEDY. 

A^/ELL," you say, "what is the remedy?" 
^ ^ And I will tell you, "A higher protective 
tariff^ Nothing else can help the working peo- 
ple in the United States. When the tariff is low 
the working people suffer; when it is high they 
are prosperous. The higher you get it the better 
the working people will live. The money ques- 
tion does not concern the working people. The 
talk about the free coinage of silver helping the 
working people is nonsense. The talk about hav- 
ing a gold standard is nonsense. The whole 
money question itself is nonsense, from beginning 
to end, and there is nothing in it, as I will show you 
before you finish this little book. What we want 
is to have the working people in America live 
better, and not become the slaves of the rich ; and 
I take it for granted that you will admit that the 
working people of the United States have been 
but little better than slaves the past four years. 
If the clippings taking from our own American 
papers are true, they have been worse than slaves. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 5 I 

** Pooh ! Pooh ! " you say, and your nose turns 
up as if you had a piece of limburger under it; 
**I am going to vote for Bryan in 1900, I do not 
care what you say." Well, my friend, so am I ; 
so you have none the better of me. 

You say you do not believe in free coinage of 
silver, and you believe in a high protective tariff; 
you say you will vote for Bryan in 1900, when 
you know he is a free trader, and believes in a free 
and unlimited coinage of silver on a ratio of six- 
teen to one. You are a strange man to believe 
one thing and vote another. Why do you do it? 
Well, my friend, I will tell you why. You have 
seen in the past four years thousands of men with- 
out a job. You have seen men working ten hours 
a day hundreds of feet under ground for $470 a 
week. You have seen Western farmers raise the 
largest crops ever known, and yet not able to pay 
the rent. You have seen the Southern cotton 
planter sell his cotton for four and five cents per 
pound, which would not give him a mere living. 
You have seen the wheat raiser sell his wheat at 
the farm for forty-five cents per bushel. You have 
seen the wool grower sell his wool for twelve cents 
per pound, which would not pay for the feed. You 
have seen mechanics turned out of house and 
home. You have seen 380,000 men on the tramp 
looking for work at any price. You have seen 
women making pants for fifteen cents a dozen, that 
were starving to death. You have seen one-fourth 



52 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

of the inhabitants of the second largest city in the 
United States hungry and cold, with no chance to 
earn a penny ; and you yourself have had no pic- 
nic. You have seen all this under the Wilson low 
tariff bill. And if you are not satisfied with this, 
I propose to help you get the medicine you so 
much desire. 

''Well," you say, **you have the Dingley Tariff 
Bill, what are you kicking about? " Yes ; we have 
the Dingley Tariff Bill, and it is better than the 
Wilson Bill, but it is not what it should be. It is 
not what I desire. The Republicans when out on 
the stump hunting votes promised they would give 
us a tariff that would protect the working people. 
They have not given us what they promised. The 
fact is, they do not care one straw about the work- 
ing people. The moment they were elected they 
began talking about a conservative tariff. They 
said it would not do to increase the tariff too much, 
and after the House sent in their bill with an in- 
crease of less than four per cent, over the Wilson 
Bill, our old gray-headed senators, who talked so 
earnestly to the working people and told them 
what they would do for them, worked nearly four 
months trying to cut the House bill down. There 
is no difference in the parties. 

Did you ever know of a party that was not an 
anti-poverty party? Did you ever know a poli- 
tician out hunting for votes that his whole argu- 
ment was not, "What I am going to do for the 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 53 

working people?" Did you ever read a paper of 
either party, but what the editor told you his 
whole object in life was to help the poor, hard- 
handed sons of toil? 

Out in the West they tell the farmer that his 
wheat will bring two dollars per bushel if their 
party is elected. In the East they tell the me- 
chanic that when they get in power he can buy his 
flour at two dollars a barrel. The Democrats tell 
him they will give him the markets of the world 
so he can have work all the time at high wages, 
and also give him free silver. The Republicans 
tell him they will give him protection, reform the 
currency, and make every silver dollar on earth 
just as good as a gold dollar. 

The fact is, working people never investigate 
the condition of the country. They never look 
ten miles away from home to see what the trouble 
is. They listen to these politicians going about 
the country hunting votes and telling them about 
liberty, fraternity, and equality. They read these 
party papers who are hired to support these very 
chaps. They never reason about anything. 

Let us take the Western farmer who raises corn 
and wheat, and, mind you, I am not talking of the 
man who owns several farms that he rents for a 
large per cent., but I want to get at the man who 
rents his farm, the poor laboring farmer. The 
man who owns several hundred acres of land that 
he bought years ago at three dollars per acre, 



54 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

which is now worth fifty dollars per acre, is not a 
poor laboring man. He is the most independent 
of all men. The poor renter, unless conditions 
change, can never own a farm. Land is getting 
higher every year, and, of course, will continue to 
get higher at every decade. 

The young man just starting out in life who de- 
pends upon the wages he earns at the factory can 
never have a home until conditions change ; 
neither can the laboring miner, the clerk, the rail- 
road employee, or, in fact, any other man who 
works by the day. 

The raising of corn and wheat in the Western 
States has been a profitable business in years past, 
but the rent is all the time getting higher, and 
corn and wheat is all the while getting lower. If the 
price of corn last year had been thirty cents per 
bushel at the farm, instead of ten to fifteen cents, 
the corn planter would have made some money; 
but as it was, most of them came out in debt. The 
farm renters, instead of taking a business view of 
the situation, and try to advance the price of corn 
and wheat, do all they can to keep the price down. 
It does not seem to me that it ought to take a 
farmer very long to see why the price of corn is 
getting lower ; but he does not. And if you ask 
him why, he will give you the same answer that 
every politician will give you, no matter to what 
party he belongs. They will tell you about the 
monetary system of the country. They want a 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 55 

gold standard and a reform of the currency, or 
they want a free and unlimited coinage of silver 
on a ratio of sixteen to one. They will tell you 
about the trusts and the money power, or about 
the railroads and Wall Street money lenders. 
They all have the same story. Every paper tells 
the same tale of woe, it matters not what party 
they represent; whether Republicans, Populist, 
Democrats, or Socialist. It is all the same hash. 



"SUPPLY AND DEMAND MAKE THE PRICE/' 

Every man ought to know without being told 
that the reason why wheat, corn, cotton, and other 
products of the farm are low, is because there is 
too much of it. He ought to know without being 
told that supply and demand make the price of 
everything in the world. There is corn enough in 
this country to last until the harvest of 1898, if not 
a bushel was raised in 1897. There are millions 
of bushels of corn that has been lying in the bins 
for three years waiting a higher price. It certainly 
seems to me that the corn planters living in the 
corn belt of this country would do all they could 
to reduce the acreage of corn in other parts of the 
United States. They certainly know that if this 
could be done they would be able to get a fair 
price for corn, and make some money. •* Yes," 
you say, "that sounds well on paper, but how can 



56 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

it be done?" I answer by a protective tariff. Not 
the tariff given us by the Wilson Bill; not the 
tariff given us by the Dingley Bill, but one that 
will protect the working man from the half civil- 
ized countries of the world. Then you laugh and 
say you have heard that same story before. It's 
an old chestnut. Yet you will admit if the pro- 
duction of corn could be reduced one-third you 
would get a living price for it. If I were a West- 
ern farmer I would take a look over this country 
and see where all this corn was being raised ; why 
so many of our people had gone into the business, 
and what they want to induce them to raise some- 
thing else. 

Now take a look. In the South you find no less 
than 500,000,000 bushels of corn have been raised 
this year ; yet it is not a corn country, and their 
yield is not fifteen bushels per acre on the average. 
I would try to stop them from raising corn and buy 
it from me. 

Take another look at the little stony hills of 
New England. They, too, will put upon the 
market 10,000,000 bushels of corn to compete 
with the Western corn planter. 

Look again at New York and Pennsylvania, and 
you find these two States will add 100,000,000 
bushels of corn to give the Western corn planter 
a push downward. 

I should think you people in the West would 
like to cut off this competition ; but instead you 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 57 

vote for a policy that forces these people in the 
South and East to raise corn, and you are not 
having a very nice time of it, are you? I am glad 
of it. It serves you right. You cannot expect 
much of a rise in corn this year. If you do, you 
will not get it. 

Now your question is, why do they raise so 
much corn in the East and South on land that 
produces so little ? That is very easy to answer : 
The price of cotton, sugar, rice, and wool is so low 
in the South that the farmers could not raise these 
things and buy your corn. 

In the East one-half the factory hands are idle, 
and to give you a case in point : 1 know of two 
men in Massachusetts who had been out of work 
a long time. Last year they rented ten acres of 
old pasture land, and planted it in corn. They 
had no money to pay for fertilizing It, so they 
carted out what they call muck from an old 
swamp, and they raised over 200 bushels of corn. 
The old pasture had not been turned over for forty 
years. This is not the worse feature about it: 
Those two men used to earn from $2.50 to $3.00 
a day, and bought Western corn. You stopped 
them from buying your corn, and made them raise 
corn which helped reduce your price, the same as 
you did in the South. Now take your medicine. 

The cotton planters of the South are nearly all 
free traders, as are the sugar and wool growers. 
Look at their condition to-day. Up to 1892 



58 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

Southern wool sold at from eighteen to twenty-five 
cents per pound. One year after it went down to 
ten and twelve cents, and 2,000,000 pounds sold 
at San Antonio, Texas, last year for six cents a 
pound. Cotton is selling there for four and a half 
to five cents a pound, and no man can get a living 
at these prices. 

• 

WHY THE FARMERS SHOULD VOTE FOR TARIFF 
ON SUGAR. 

What sort of a tariff would I have? Why, I 
would begin by putting five cents a pound on 
sugar ; nothing less, on every pound that was im- 
ported into this country. When you tell this to 
the Western farmer, or to a working man in the 
East, he will look you square in the eye and tell 
you he has not had twenty-five pounds of sugar in 
his house the past year; and now he says you 
want to make it higher. He does not know that 
with a tariff of five cents a pound on sugar he 
could have all he wanted. The lower the tariff on 
sugar the less he will have. That is a cold hard 
fact, but he will never find it out, so I shall vote 
with him in 1900, and let him go without sugar. 

We send away over $100,000,000 in gold every 
year for sugar; $10,000,000 more than we get for 
all the wheat we export. We put in corn, cotton, 
and wheat on our sugar lands to keep the price of 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 59 

what the American farmer produces at starvation 
prices. Just think ! The crop of sugar raised in 
the United States in 1895 ^^as no more than was 
raised in 1850, about 130,000 tons, and the rice 
crop was smaller by 35,000 tons;' yet we have the 
best lands in the world for raising these crops. 

How quickly with a tariff of five cents a pound 
on sugar would the corn lands of Kansas, Ne- 
braska, and other States be put into sugar beets ! 
How quickly would a good part of the lands in 
the South now growing cotton and corn be put in- 
to cane ! How quickly the price of corn, wheat, 
and cotton would advance, and give those people 
a respectable living ! '* Very nice thing," you say, 
"for the man who raises sugar, but what would 
become of the POOR people who have no sugar 
lands, or any other land?" If you will just hold 
your breath a moment I will tell you how. " With 
a protective tariff," the POOR people who work 
in factories and in the stores, the men who build 
the houses, forge the iron, build the railroads, mine 
the coal, and work with the spade, will get his 
sugar. I am now talking to the farmers of this 
country. I will talk to the other men later, and it 
will amount to just as much as talking to you. 
Simply nothing. 

If the man renting a farm and selling his corn 
at from ten to fifteen cents a bushel at the farm, 
does not know enough to get rid of his com- 
petition and better his condition when he can, 



6o POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

does not deserve anything better than what he is 
getting. 

The man taking his wife and children out into 
the fields to chop and pick cotton, which will 
hardly give him enough to keep body and soul 
together, ought to know enough to vote for a pol- 
icy that will reduce the acreage and cut off the 
supply. Holding Conventions and passing reso- 
lutions will never do it. Raise the $i 20,000,000 
worth of sugar that we buy of other countries at 
home, and you will give the cotton grower, the 
corn planter, and the wheat producer a chance to 
live Keep this money at home ; then what cot- 
ton, corn, and wheat you can spare for export 
make them pay you for it. Work for your own 
interest. Keep our mechanics at work in the fac- 
tories; buy their products, and pay a fair price 
for them, so they can live, and they in turn will 
buy your products. Do not buy the products of 
foreign countries, and force the American out of 
the factory to compete with you in the fields. 
'•Yes," you say, "but wheat is advancing in price 
every day," and you believe it will go higher. So 
do I ; and I would not be surprised to see it bring 
$1.25 per bushel before next spring, and that is 
low enough. When you see the cause of this rise 
in wheat you ought to see that you cannot expect 
this market to last long, and the price must soon 
go down again. What made wheat go up? You 
do not know, do you? 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 6 1 

France raises 350,000,000 bushels of wheat every 
year, India 300,000,000 bushels, Russia 325 ,000,000, 
Austria 200,000,000, Germany 125,000,000, Italy 
125,000,000, United Kingdom 80,000,000, Spain 
100,000,000, Asia 100,000,000, Caucasus 80,000,- 
000, South America 100,000,000, Australia 50,- 
000,000, Canada 60,000,000, Africa 50,000,000, 
Turkey 50,000,000, Belgium 25,000,000, Greece 
12,000,000, Servia 10,000,000, Portugal 9,000,000, 
Netherlands 7,000,000, Denmark 6,000,000, Swe- 
den and Norway 5,000,000, Switzerland 4,000,000, 
and Mexico 12,000,000. Do you not know that 
there are 2,500,000,000 bushels of wheat raised 
every year not grown in the United States? and 
that there were 2,1 10,000 bushels of wheat shipped 
into the United States and sold last year? Do 
you not know that when you exported a bushel of 
wheat you had to compete with all these countries, 
and that in some of them you can get farm labor- 
ers at ten cents a day? The only time you get a 
rise on the wheat you export is when the crops 
fail in these countries. The crops were short in 
some of them this year, which caused you to get 
a better price for your crop. 

Let me give you a clipping from the ColtunbuSy 
Ohio Press: 

" For a time there was talk about taxing New 
York Stock operations, but actuated by that fidelity 
to the people always shown by the Republican 
party since the days of Lincoln, the tax was 



62 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

placed on sugar. If there are any who seek to 
lighten their taxes let them quit eating sugar." 

You farmers who raise corn, wheat, and cotton 
can take that with you into the fields and chew on 
it. I would advise you to subscribe for this Co- 
limibus, Ohio Press. It is just the paper you need. 

Here is one from the New York World, — the 
poor man's friend. It says: 

"The Dingley Tariff Bill is an attempt to force 
up the cost of living in the United States in the 
expectation that it will be easier to get a dear liv- 
ing than a cheap one. If that theory works Mr. 
Dingley will be entitled to insert himself into 
American history as a greater inventor than 
Keeley." 

You have had his cheap living for four years. 
How did you like it? 

Now here is another from the St. Louis Republic, 
owned by the same Polish Jew that owns the New 
York World, and he has made millions of dollars 
in this country writing just such free trade litera- 
ture for our American farmers. The Republic 
say : 

'• News of the failure of the wheat crop in a 
large part of the European wheat belt and also in 
Argentina and other parts of the South American 
wheat-producing section is the first piece of good 
fortune the American farmers have had for years. 
His season has been all that could be asked, for 
his yield is bountiful. One recognized authority 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 63 

estimated the shortage, a month ago, at 144,000,- 
000 bushels of wheat. Since then he has learned 
of the failure of the crop in Russia, India, and 
Argentina, and has more than doubled his esti- 
mate." 

This paper says this is the first good fortune the 
American farmer has had for years. Why, does 
he not say this is the first time the American farm- 
ers has received a fair price for his wheat since the 
Democrat party gave him the Wilson Bill? This 
is what you depend upon for a rise in wheat, and 
remember it does not come every year. Yes, these 
are good papers for the American farmers. 

I will now say to the farmers who raise corn, 
wheat, and cotton in the United States, continue 
to raise these staples ; force the wool growers out 
of their business with a low tariff, and make them 
put their lands into cotton, corn, and wheat. You 
have done this, and you have done more. You 
have forced the men out of the factories, out of 
the mills, off the railroads, out of the stores; you 
have taken them out of the sugar fields; you 
have forced the boys to quit going to school in 
order to help you raise corn, wheat, and cotton ; 
and now comes Eugene V. Debs with his social 
democracy and the Salvation Army all preparing 
to move West to help you. You can then build 
bins the whole length of all the railroads to store 
your five cent corn, read your free trade papers 
run by foreigners, vote for Bryan, or some other 



64 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

free trade fellow and when the poor devils who are 
out of work, hungry and cold, come along beg- 
ging for something to eat, get your gun and drive 
them into the wilderness, for they are nothing but 
American tramps and have no right to live anyway. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MINE OWNER AND EMPLOYER* 

T ET us now see what the coal miners need to 
J—-/ help them out of their trouble. And right 
here I want to give you an editorial clipped from 
the Chicago Chronicle^ which is a free trade paper. 
It says : 

'* From the standpoint of wages paid and de- 
manded there never was a more justifiable strike 
than that of the coal miners which is now in prog- 
ress. It is a strike for a living. It is a strike by 
men whose ill-requited toil is peculiarly hazardous 
and hard, directed at employers who, in the ma- 
jority of cases, are pretentious frauds in respect 
to their protestations of a high regard for labor. 
It is a strike against the humbug of a Republican 
tariff, and in the interest of decency, humanity, 
and fair play. It is a strike which ought to win, 
and which the Chronicle hopes will win. 

*' Eminent coal operators find it comparatively 
easy to meet in somebody's backroom and agree 
upon an increase in the price of coal to consum- 
ers. Such increases often without cause, save the 



66 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

greed of capital, are submitted to uncomplainingly. 
There is nothing to prevent these gentlemen from 
yielding to the just demands of the miners and, 
if necessary, adding the increased wage to the 
price of the product. The striking miners have 
been wretchedly paid, as all 'protected' laborers 
have been. Their wages have been cut below the 
living point. They and their families are in dis- 
tress. 

"The strike has been peacefully conducted thus 
far, showing that the men are law-abiding and 
honest. Their leaders have borne themselves with 
dignity and sincerity. They merit and will re- 
ceive the sympathy, moral and financial, of all 
Americans who hate injustice." 

I agree with the Chronicle in its declaration, that 
" there never was a more justifiable strike." It 
surely is as the Chronicle says : •* a strike for a 
living." And I also agree with the Chronicle in 
saying, It is a strike against the humbug of a "pro- 
tective " tariff. The Wilson Bill was a humbug, 
and the Dingley Bill is not much better. 

If we had had a tariff high enough to have shut 
out the coal of other countries, and one that would 
exclude the sugar, cotton, wool, and manufactured 
goods from other countries, the coal miners could 
have struck for three dollars a day, and their 
demands would have been allowed. I should 
like to see the miners win, and not a man be 
obliged to go down into the earth for less than 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 6/ 

three to four dollars a day. And he should re- 
ceive this for eight hours' work. Half the time 
these men work in mud and water not knowing 
whether they will ever again see the light above. 
This is what the miners want, and it is what they 
should receive. Who is to blame for this in- 
justice ? The Chronicle says, '* the coal operators." 
I say it is the very fellows who write these free 
trade editorials, and mislead the working people 
by telling them they should have the markets of 
the world. 

Most of these miners are foreigners, and vote 
for tariff, for revenue only ; and they got just what 
they voted for, "starvation." I do not believe the 
miners will win. How can they? Here are thou- 
sands of men off the railroads, out of the fac- 
tories and stores; mechanics of all kinds (380,000 
of them) all on the tramp, hunting for bread. 
They were driven from their homes by the com- 
petition of the half-civilized countries of the world: 
these are the men who will take the places at 
prices that will hardly keep them out of the grave. 
These men are hungry men, that are taking the 
places of the miners to-day. What will the min- 
ers do? They will arm themselves with guns and 
pistols, and we will see poor hungry men, who are 
trying to get an advance in their starvation wages, 
meet the poor hungry men who have taken their 
places to prevent starvation, and the fight begins. 
Poor hungry men fighting poor hungry men. Then 



6S POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

you will see the soldiers on the march, and you 
will see the blood of the poor hungry men begin 
to flow. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! 

Yes, the Chronicle is right. " Humbug of a 
protective tariff." It should be $5.00 a ton. I 
wonder if the coal miners know that we paid Can- 
ada last year $3,1 18,746 for coal? I wonder if the 
Chronicle knows that if the mine operators should 
put the price of coal up to where they could pay 
the miners $2.00 a day that hardly a mine could 
be run in this country? Perhaps the Chronicle 
does not know that there are 200,000 square miles 
of coal fields in China and Japan, 35,000 square 
miles in India, 27,000 in Russia, 9,000 in Great 
Britian, 3,600 in France, and that if we imported 
over $3,000,000 worth of coal, with the wages of 
our miners at $4.70 a week, that with an advance 
in price it would bring millions of tons more. The 
Chronicle says it is in sympathy with the coal 
miners. It does not look like it. 

If I was a miner I would vote for men who 
would protect me and my business. I would vote 
for men who would put the tariff on coal high 
enough so not a ton could be landed on our shores. 
I would vote for men who would put a tariff high 
enough on everything that can be grown or made 
in the United States so none of it would ever 
reach this country. I would not have the men 
from the farms, the rice fields, the sugar planta- 
tions, the sheep ranches, the factories, the iron 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 69 

mines, the mills, and the mechanics and laborers 
turned loose to compete with me in my business. 
I would vote for men who would make a tariff high 
enough so these men would be employed at good 
wages, and the coal operators could not get them. 
I would then work hand in hand with the mine 
owners. I would ask them to form a trust. Yes, 
a coal trust. Terrible, isn't it? I would ask them 
to shut down every coal mine in this country. 
That it was not advisable to run and give the own- 
ers a per cent, of the profits of the trust, so they 
could make just as much money as if they run the 
mine. I would ask them to put the price of coal 
high enough so they could afford to pay me wages 
that would enable me to live well and save some- 
thing, by working eight hours a day ten months 
in the year. I would put men at the head of the 
Miners* Union that had sense enough to work in 
harmony with the mine owners, and I would have 
a ''Great Big Trust." 

" Well," you say, *' I have read enough of your 
book if you are in favor of trusts." If you have 
paid your twenty-five cents for the book it is all I 
want of you. I have formed a trust with the Li- 
brarian of Congress on this book, and do not ask 
any odds of anybody. This is what the mine 
owners and miners should do. And if you were 
not willing to pay for the coal so the miners could 
live, well, you might freeze to death. I would see 
that you paid for it if you bought it from any 



yO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

other country. I am in favor of trusts, because 
they are paying their workmen better wages to- 
day than the firms and corporations who are 
obliged to meet the competion of the country. I 
am in favor of anything that will raise the wages 
of our working men and women so they can better 
their condition. 

You say the mine owners are a set of scoun- 
drels, and would not be satisfied unless they made 
every dollar possible. You are just one of those 
kind of men who would buy your coal in China 
or any other country if you could save fifteen 
cents a ton, and let the miners of America starve. 
You are one of those men who say, if our people 
cannot manufacture goods or mine coal as cheap 
as other countries, let them quit and go at some- 
thing else. I have heard hundreds of farmers say 
this very thing ; and thousands of miners and men 
who worked in factories have quit, and are now 
raising corn and wheat. I wonder how the farm- 
ers like it ! 

The Chronicle says: "Eminent coal operators 
find it comparatively easy to meet in somebody's 
back room and agree upon an increase in the 
price of coal to consumers." Not so easy as the 
Chronicle might suppose. I venture the assertion 
that there is no coal mine in the United States 
with the same amount of capital invested that has 
made as much profit in the past two years as has 
the Chronicle. The Chronicle also says : " There 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. /I 

is nothing to prevent these gentlemen from yield- 
ing to the just demands of the miners and, if nec- 
essary, adding the increased wage to the price of 
the product." 

Let us see about that. When a coal operator 
goes to New York or any other large city to get or- 
ders for coal here is what he bumps up against : He 
calls on some big iron manufacturer, or dealer in 
coal, or railroad official, and says : " I want to sell 
you 200,000 tons of coal." "All right, sir; I am 
going to buy that amount of coal. What is your 
price?" •*! will sell you that amount at $3-70 a 
ton." "Well, sir, I do not want your coal." 
" You say you are going to buy the coal, why 
can't I sell it to you?" "Simply because I can 
buy it cheaper. Why," he says, " I have had fifty 
telegrams in the past twenty-four hours offering to 
sell me coal for less than your price. Just as good 
coal as yours ; and, more than that, I can buy for- 
eign coal for less money than you offer it. Why 
should I buy your coal?" 

Let me ask you what you would have done un- 
der the circumstances. No doubt you would have 
told him the men at your mine struck and you 
had to advance their wages, and that he ought to 
be willing to pay you more. That is not what I 
would have done. I should have done just 
what the coal operators done : took the order at 
$3.50 per ton, gone home and cut the wages of 
the men where I could make ten cents per ton 



72 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

profit, or on the whole the neat little sum of $20,- 
000. You might not have taken the order. Then 
you would have to go back to your mine, let your 
men go and close up business. Every man that 
deals largely in coal in this country knows all the 
time the exact price he can buy coal landed at his 
yards from any part of the world. Just the 
moment he can buy coal ten cents a ton cheaper 
from other countries, the foreign coal will come. 
All these dealers are in correspondence with every 
mine in the country. They have hundreds of offers 
every morning by wire, from as many different 
mine owners, who are trying to place orders. They 
cut and slash prices to a point where there is noth- 
ing in it for them or the miner. Competition is 
heartless. Competition starves men, women, and 
children. Competition is not the life of trade, but 
certain death; and I am in favor of TRUSTS. 

All this talk about the mine owners being de- 
mons is nonsense. It is worse, " it is a lie." They 
are just as good men as the editor of the Chron- 
icle, or the farmers, or the men who work in the 
mines. I do not believe there is a coal mine in 
operation to-day where the net profit being made 
is over fifteen cents per ton ; and I believe more 
are making less than are making more. This you 
say sounds silly to you. 

We will take a mine getting out 1500 tons a 
day, and that is not a very large mine, at fifteen 
cents per ton, is $225.00 a day, or $6,750.00 a 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 73 

month, or $81,000.00 a year; some mines are 
getting out five times this amount. You can figure 
it, and see how silly it looks to you. 

I will make another statement: If the mine 
owners could sell their coal at an advance of $1.00 
per ton, they would be glad to give ninety cents 
of this to the miners. You say you do not believe 
it, and I do not care a copper cent whether you do 
or not. The condition of the miners will never be 
changed. They will always be led by such men as 
Eugene V. Debs, and vote for free trade. Perhaps 
Mr. Debs is looking ahead to 1900, when we can 
follow in the footsteps of W. P. Powderly. The 
strike is on, 75,000 men out, as the sun goes down. 
Strike, revolution, and disorder, and the sons of 
men still crying out in mortal agony for enough to 
sustain life. Delegates are now out from the Min- 
ers' Union in every part of this land begging for 
food and clothes. They voted for laws that brought 
them to this condition, and they will do it again. 



CHAPTER VL 
CONDITIONS OF THE EAST. 

LET us now take a look at the East. Let us 
go into the factories, and look at the work- 
men, many of whom are drawn out of shape : one 
shoulder lower than the other, and their hands 
distorted by constant toil. 

The wages in the cotton and woolen mills do not 
average eighty cents a day; and even at these 
wages the mills are losing money. One of the 
largest cotton mills in the East lost $34,000 last 
year. This is not all : the East are losing their 
business; they cannot compete with the Southern 
mills in the manufacturing of cotton goods, and 
if you want to know why, visit the cotton mills 
around Augusta, Ga., and you will find the average 
wages much lower than in the East. Some will 
tell you the reason the Southern mills can make 
cotton goods cheaper is because the cotton is 
grown there, and it is a saving in freight. But 
stop and figure a little. The freight on cotton 
from Georgia to the Eastern mills is sixty cents per 
hundred, and on cotton goods to the East or West 
over $2.00 per hundred ; yet these Southern mills 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 75 

are driving the Eastern mills out of the market 
right in their own territory on coarser made goods. 
Simply wages, nothing else ; and the Eastern mills 
must reduce wages or quit business. Competition, 
which has been held was the life of trade for ages, 
may be true, but it is just as true that it is death 
to the poor laboring man. Thousands of men and 
women working in these factories are in no better 
condition than the coal miners. Thousands have 
left to help the corn and wheat growers of the West 
produce more cheap corn and wheat. Thousands 
more must go. 

In past years when business has been what they 
call in the East quite fair, it has taken a man work- 
ing in those factories many years to pay for his 
little home with the most rigid economy. If things 
remain as they are to-day and as they have been 
for the last four years, a young man just started 
out in life, if he should live to be sixty years old 
could not accumulate money enough to buy a 
home. The trouble is, they have been competing 
for the markets of the world. 



**HOW FREE TRADERS WOULD GET THE MAR- 
KETS OF THE WORLD.'' 

I would like to know, my reader, if you were 
manufacturing, say cotton goods in New England, 
allowing you had all the money needed for the 



T6 political thunderbolts. 

business, how you would go to work to place your 
goods in South America? England has that 
country now, and sells them nearly all the goods 
they buy. I would really like to know how some 
of these free traders would manage to get the trade 
away from England? I never heard them explain 
it. They will begin by saying: •• Owing to the 
intelligence of our workmen and our improved 
facilities and natural advantages we can success- 
fully compete with any foreign nation in the 
markets of the world." 

I have taken the above from the Democratic 
platform of the State of Michigan. This is all the 
explanation I ever heard from any man, but it is 
quite different when you go into the markets of 
the world to compete. 

We grow in this country four-fifths of all the 
cotton in the world. For four years we have had 
free wool, yet we did not get the markets of the 
world or even the South American markets ; nor 
did we hold our own markets on woolen and cot- 
ton goods ; but we find that England shipped 
millions of dollars worth more into the United 
States during that period than ever before in the 
history of this country. 

The Democrats told us when the Wilson Bill 
passed that as soon as our people ** adapted them- 
selves to the changed condition" it would be all 
right. I agree with them that if we had free trade 
for ten or fifteen years, England could not ship in 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. TJ 

a dollar's worth of goods into this country, and we 
might, perhaps, get a share of the markets of the 
world, because the people would have ** adapted 
themselves," as the Democrats say, "to the 
changed condition" of things; and that condition 
would, of course, be just the same condition for the- 
working men and working women as it is in other 
countries. When that time comes we would be a 
great manufacturing nation. The rich richer, and 
the poor would be far below the condition of the 
slaves in the South in i860. 

Now let us see how you would sell cotton goods 
in South America, if you were manufacturing 
them in the East. You would first start a man 
down there with samples to get orders. The first 
obstacle he would strike would be a man repre- 
senting some English manufacture. You would 
ask two cents and seven-eighths for your print 
cloth, and the Englishman two and three-fourths 
cents. If your agent dropped an eighth, the Eng- 
lishman would also. How many sales would your 
agent make, and what would he do about it? He 
would, no doubt, come home and tell you that he 
could not sell goods in South America at your 
prices. You would take your books and show 
him that the net cost of the goods was two and 
three-fourths cents. What would he advise you to 
do. His expenses down there was a dead loss to 
you. Everything he sold was at a loss. You 
would, no doubt, read over the Democratic plat- 



78 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

form: ** Owing to the intelligence of our work- 
men and our improved facilities and natural ad- 
vantages we can successfully compete with any- 
foreign nation in the markets of the world." Then 
you would start him out again. 

Let me tell you, my friend, the results as I have 
given you are results of my own trip in this line, 
and I know they are correct. If I was the manu- 
facturer competing for the trade in South America 
I would put my wages at the same price that the 
Englishman paid, and go down there and meet 
him with prices that I could make sales. All you 
have to do is to give the working people time to 
adapt themselves to the changed condition of 
things; and when the American people become 
hungry enough to work for wages that would com- 
pete with the Englishman, there would be no 
trouble in selling goods in South America. 

Foreign manufacturers are making goods cheaper 
than we are, and can undersell the American man- 
ufacturer. That is all there is in it. This is the 
reason that over $34,000,000 worth of manufactured 
cotton goods, and $44,000,000 of woolen goods 
were imported into this country last year. These 
added together make $78,000,000 worth of man- 
ufactured cotton and woolen goods that were 
brought here and sold last year. Suppose these 
goods had been made in the United States 
by the American people, do you think we would 
have had 380,000 good honest mechanics on the 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 79 

tramp looking for work, as these Democratic free 
trade papers tell you was a fact? 

The Democrats of Michigan tell you that "Ow- 
ing to the intelligence of our workmen, and our 
improved facilities and natural advantages we can 
successfully compete with any foreign nation in the 
markets of the world." What a set of liars they 
are ! We cannot hold our own market. 

First, I deny their statement that the men and 
women who work in our American mills are more 
intelligent than those who work in the mills of 
England ; and I will make the statement broader 
by saying that the workmen who work in English 
mills are better educated than those who work in 
the cotton and woolen mills of America. There 
is only nine per cent, of the English people who 
cannot read and write, while there are over thir- 
teen per cent, of our American people in the same 
condition. A good part of the men and women 
who work in our mills are foreigners from almost 
every country on the globe. 

In the State of Maine twenty-four per cent, of 
the foreign population cannot read or write ; that 
of New Hampshire twenty-four per cent. ; Ver- 
mont, twenty-five per cent. ; Massachusetts, sixteen 
per cent. ; Rhode Island, t\yenty-two per cent., 
and Connecticut, fifteen percent. So then we find 
their first statement a bonified lie. 

They also say, "with our improved facilities." 
I would like to know what improved facilities we 



80 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

have that England has not. They have cheap 
coal, cheaper labor, the very same machinery, 
cheaper money. They have their own vessels for 
carrying their goods to every part of the world, 
while we have to export ours in their ships. The 
next is '* natural advantages." Why cannot they 
tell us what those natural advantages are that we 
have? Surely not more water power, surely not 
cheaper coal, surely not better air to breathe. 
They have never told us what they are, and they 
never will. These free traders tell us our Amer- 
ican workmen are more active, and do more work 
than the workmen of other countries. If it is true 
that our people do more work than people in 
other nations, it certainly shows a reduction of 
wages for the American people. 

Many men seem to think that the poor people 
were just born to work, and they want to see just 
how much they can get out of them. I have 
known large contractors who were looking for a 
man that could push the men. I have heard them 
say that such a man was a good one to handle 
men, for he could get more work out of them than 
any man they ever saw. What they want is a 
nigger driver ; that is the sort of a man they want. 
Take a man who has been made a foreman in 
some large factory, if he is a kind-hearted man 
and treats the men with kindness and respect, he 
does not retain his position very long. 

It is impossible to get the markets of the world 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 8 1 

except by the same method other countries get 
them. I wonder why it is that none of these free 
trade fellows think of running a factory and show- 
ing the people how it is done ! If it is true, as 
those Michigan Democrats tell us, that *' Owing to 
the intelligence of our workmen and the improved 
facilities and natural advantages we can success- 
fully compete with any foreign nation in the mar- 
kets of the world," then these free trade people 
have a snap. They would not even have to invest 
anything to secure a fortune at once. 

There are thousands of manufacturers who would 
be willing to pay anything for a manager that 
could run their factory and supervise the selling of 
their goods in foreign markets. If I knew, I would 
either go to work and manufacture the goods and 
show the people how it could be done, or I would 
take a salary of $25,000 or $50,000 a year and 
learn the manufacturers of this country how it 
could be done. There is no trouble about getting 
$100,000 the first year, if you can tell the manu- 
facturers how to sell goods in foreign markets and 
compete with other foreign manufacturers, without 
reducing the price of labor in this country. I will 
produce the manufacturer now manufacturing cot- 
ton goods in the East who will employ any man 
who says he can do it, and give him $25,0003 
year. The mill is one of the largest and best 
equipped in the world. They would, of course, 
require you to give bond, so your part of the con- 



82 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

tract would be carried out. You to buy the cotton 
as best you could, pay the hands what other mills 
pay in this country, no more ; select your own 
salesmen, and place the goods at one-sixteenth of 
a cent a yard profit. Now you can either do this 
or you can not. This, I think, would be a good 
position for the editor of the Chronicle^ as I hardly 
think he is making $25,000 a year with that paper. 
Now if you can do it, let us hear from you. This 
offer is also open to the Michigan Democrats. 

Another proposition of $25,000 a year for five 
years from a coal mining company for a man who 
will show them how to advance the wages of the 
workmen, and still sell the coal at a profit of fif- 
teen cents a ton. All they ask is a good bond, so 
you will be sure to do it, and not run them in debt. 
Now either come out or shut up. Do not tell us 
about what can be done unless you know how. I 
have tried it as a salesman and failed. I went back 
to the mill and told the company it could not be 
done, unless they could reduce the labor so to save 
three-eighths of a cent a yard. 

These free traders claim that under the Wilson 
Bill we exported more manufactured goods. If it 
be true, they ought to cower before the reports of 
their own free trade papers in regard to the condi- 
tion of the working people in this country to-day. 
Look around you ! You are not blind. See the 
hungry men and women. Hunger will make them 
work cheap. Free trade will make hungry men 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 83 

and women just the same in America as it does in 
other countries, and cheap labor will get the mar- 
kets of the world. Nothing else will. 

The old woman in St. Louis making pants at 
fifteen cents a dozen was not the only one working 
for the markets of the world. There are others. 

In New York, on a small patch of land less 
than a mile square, is a human hive where 175,000 
people live, if we may call that living, to which the 
home of the savage in the African jungle seems 
like paradise. These toilers in New York live in 
those cheerless rooms, that tower on either side like 
prisons, into which God's blessed sunshine never 
comes. The air is foul with the messes that they 
eat ; yet this food and this shelter is their only re- 
quital for long hours of weary and killing toil. Do 
you expect any of God's creatures will be content 
with such a dole for constant labor? Not while 
the world exists. Not till the judgment day. 



CHAPTER VIL 
OUR MERCHANT MARINE. 

LET us see what protection has done for 
our merchant marine. You sometimes hear 
smart politicians on the stump tell about our pro- 
tective tariff taking our flag off the sea. They 
tell you that nearly all our imports and ex- 
ports are being carried in foreign ships. These 
are facts. Our merchant marine has been killed 
by protection, and more freight was carried by 
American ships in 1810 than is being carried to- 
day. In i860 there were carried in American 
ships 5,290,000 tons. In 1896 we only carried 
4,700,000 tons, while England carried in i860, 5,- 
700,000 tons, and in 1896, 13,500,000 tons, and I 
admit protection has done it. 

England began by protecting her interests. She 
began way back in the thirties to pay her merchant 
marine a subsidy, and every few years she in- 
creased this subsidy until at one time, she was 
paying her lines nearly $5,000,000 every year. 
For years the subject of a subsidy for our Amer- 
ican lines was discussed in Congress, while each 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 85 

year more of our freight was being carried in Eng- 
lish ships. Nothing was done, however, until 
about 1850, when Congress voted a subsidy of 
$200,000 to the Collins Line. England immedi- 
ately doubled her subsidy to the Cunard Line, 
making it nearly a half million dollars a year. No 
line could compete with this, and in a few years 
the Collins Line died. 

France, Norway, Germany, and other countries 
followed England's example with these results : In 
1850 France carried 686,000 tons, while in 1896 she 
carried 1,148,000 tons. Norway carried in 1850 
298,000 tons, and in 1896 she carried 1,700,000 
tons. Germany carried in 1850, 558,000 tons, and 
in 1896 she carried 2,000,000 tons. Yes; pro- 
tection has done it. Those countries know what 
protection means, and they protect everything they 
have that can be protected. With our agricultural 
advantages England would have done better. 
England knew she must seek the markets of the 
world for the sale of her goods that her working 
people might have employment; so she protected 
them to the extent of her power. I firmly believe 
that England, under the conditions that exist in 
America, would have protected her people from the 
pauper labor of the world, and given them higher 
wages than the American people ever dreamed of. 
She protected them with millions from her treasury, 
and had she had this vast country she would never 
have forced her people to export four-fifths of all 



86 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

the cotton raised in the world, at prices that do 
not pay the planter a living. She would never 
have forced the corn raiser to export his corn when 
he did not receive ten cents per bushel at the farm. 
She would never have had 380,000 of her citizens 
on the tramp looking for work at any price. She 
would never have forced a woman to make trousers 
at fifteen cents a dozen. She never would have 
allowed foreign emigrants to land on these shores 
and in one year's time hold office under the flag, 
and not able to even speak the English language. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

FREE SILVER — THE COLD HARD FACTS. 

LAST year we had the great campaign of edu- 
cation : Free silver, gold standard, and re- 
form of the currency. That is what they told us. 
The majority of the working men in this country 
voted for free coinage of silver on a ratio of six- 
teen to one. They were told that with free coinage 
of silver everything would be cheap that they had 
to buy, and everything they had to sell would be 
high. They were told about the great crime of 
1873 when silver was demonetized. It is useless 
to go into the details of that campaign. It is 
already fresh in your minds, but we can look at 
some of the cold hard facts. 

First, every word said in favor of a gold stand- 
ard, every word said about free coinage of silver 
on a ratio of sixteen to one, every word said about 
reforming the currency, are wasted words. You 
might just as well say that Congress should pass a 
law that the moon shall shine just as brightly in 
the night as does the sun in the day; but t\v^ fact 
is, the moon would not do it. Neither will silver 
remain on a parity with gold at any ratio the Gov- 



88 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

ernment might name, or, in fact, all the govern- 
ments of the world. No ratio can be named by 
which silver can remain on a parity with gold any 
great length of time. 

The facts are that these rich mining companies 
are mining silver at about fifty-three cents per 
ounce, and getting rich out of it. They can mine 
more silver to-day with the help of one hundred 
men than they could thirty years ago with 500 
men. Sixty million ounces of silver were mined 
and put upon the market last year. Perhaps you 
do not know that those rich mine owners would 
not have mined this silver unless they made a 
profit. If you do not, you have very little sense. 

Supposing it was possible to establish free coin- 
age on a ratio of sixteen to one, what would you 
get out of it? Not a five cent piece. It would 
only give the mine owners one hundred per cent, 
profit, and open up hundreds of mines that are 
not rich enough to pay at the present price of sil- 
ver, and the markets would be flooded and glutted 
with silver. Increase in use, however great, would 
be met by increase of production, and you would 
soon have a money that would not be worth much 
more than pig iron. International agreement could 
not help it any more than it could fix the price of 
pig iron. The present production of gold is so 
great as to meet the wants of the whole world. 
More than $200,000,000 were mined out and put 
upon the market last year. Should they find a 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 89 

country rich with gold ore and could mine large 
quantities at half the cost as at present, you would 
see gold take a tumble in the markets of the world, 
and all the governments on the globe could not 
prevent it. You may learn some time that supply 
and demand make the price of everything in the 
world; but I doubt if you live long enough. 

''Well," you say, "American silver dollars are 
just as good as gold dollars." So is a Government 
note, and both will remain so just as long as the 
Goverment will redeem them in gold, and no 
longer. This they are doing. 

♦•But," you say, "there is no law by which the 
United States is compelled to redeem her silver 
with gold." 

My friend, the United States does redeem her 
silver with gold every day in the year ; and when- 
ever she declines to do so she cannot pass a single 
one of them for more than fifty cents. I know 
there is no law on the statue books to that effect, 
but when the importer in New York or other cities 
buy their goods in England, or other foreign coun- 
tries on sixty days' time, those goods must be paid 
for in gold. The importer sells his goods all over 
the United States, and takes his pay in paper and 
silver. He gets very little gold. At the end of 
sixty days he must remit a gold draft, or send the 
gold coin. Tell me, please, where he will get the 
gold with his paper and silver to settle this debt? 
You do not know, do you? He will get it from 



90 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

the United States Government through his bank. 
Should they refuse to give him the gold for his 
paper and silver it would be known in every part 
of the world in one hour's time, and the Ameri- 
can silver dollar, with its eagle and " In God We 
Trust," would not be worth more than fifty cents 
anywhere on the globe; and you, my reader, 
would not take it for any more. The American 
silver dollar will pass for one hundred cents in 
Europe simply because the banks there can ship 
it back to this country and draw gold against it. 
And for no other reason. 



**NO SUCH THING AS MONETIZATION OR 
DEMONETIZATION/' 

The man who does not believe there is a law 
compelling the United States to redeem her silver 
with gold in order to keep it on a parity with gold 
is far behind the times. There are some laws not 
made by Congress that must be obeyed, and this 
is one of them. Gold is the standard money in 
every country on the earth, and if all the nations 
of the earth demonetized gold, and make silver a 
legal tender, gold would still be the standard 
money of the world just the same. There is no 
such thing as monetization or demonetization. No 
government can by law or by stamping enhance 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 9 1 

the value of any metal, except by redeeming that 
metal with something more valuable. Whenever 
I dig twenty-two and eight-tenths grains of gold 
out of the ground I have so much money. I do 
not ask any government to stamp it, or to pass a 
law making it a legal tender, or to name it a dollar, 
or a franc, or anything else. I would be none the 
richer by it, because they could not put any value 
into the metal. 

Gold is in demand simply because it is used in 
the arts ; and should the demand for it in the arts 
cease entirely it would not be worth anything. 
And so it is with everything else in the world. 
Nothing can be money unless it has the value with- 
in itself. Nothing ever was, and never will be. Its 
value will be according to its demand. Supply 
and demand make its value, and the use of any- 
thing as money will not make a demand, because 
every coin is on the market all the time. It must 
have the value in it to start with. 



"MONEY CANNOT BE MADE BY LAW/* 

Oh, you are one of those who want money made 
by law, are you? All I can say to you is, you 
never had any that was made by law, and you 
never will. Yes, of course you know better. You 
have a five dollar bill in your pocket that will 



92 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

buy just as much as a five dollar gold piece; so 
have I, but it is not money. Never was, and never 
will be. If it was money, why should they print 
on it, "Will pay to the bearer five dollars." I 
have some paper money made by law myself, and 
by the laws of the United States of America. It 
is stamped United States of America, two dollars, 
but I could not buy one soda cracker with a mil- 
lion dollars of it. 

"Oh," you say, " that is the old Continental 
money with which the United States paid the Rev- 
olutionary soldiers. That was repudiated." Yes, 
that is so. Now suppose the United States had 
paid them in twenty dollar gold pieces, how in the 
name of God could they have repudiated them? 
If you know, speak out and let us know. 

I am in favor of paying the working people of this 
country in money that cannot be repudiated by the 
United States. The working people make all the 
money in the world, and I am against paying them 
in old paper rags that can be made worthless by 
one act of Congress. I do not object to the Gov- 
ernment or National Bank notes of this country, 
but I want every dollar of it payable on demand 
in shining, glittering gold. Let the working peo- 
ple stop voting for a money made by law, and 
that can be unmade in twenty minutes by a few 
little two by four lawyers in Congress. Demand 
more good money for your labor, and vote so you 
can get it, and live like Americans ought to live. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 93 

"NOTHING IS MONEY THAT HAS TO BE PAID,** 

I have had them tell me that anything was 
money that would pass : a bank note, a Govern- 
ment note, or a bank check. I have had them 
hunt up authorities on money to show me the 
definition of money. But **the proof of the pud- 
ding is in the eating;" and when I have a check 
on the bank, and the bank fails and cannot pay, I 
have sense enough to know that the check I hold 
is not money. If I have a Government note or 
bill, and the Government repudiates it, I know- 
enough to know that the note or bill never was 
money. I know enough to know that nothing is 
money that has to be paid. When you have a 
Government note or bill and want the money, you 
take it to the Government and they will pay it. If 
you have a bank note or check you do the same. 
If you had a twenty dollar gold piece, what a fool 
you would be running round looking for somebody 
to pay it. You would not fear bank failures or 
repudiation by the Government. You would have 
twenty dollars in money. Nothing is money that 
has to be paid or that can be repudiated. 

What a working man wants of free coinage of 
silver on a ratio of sixteen to one I cannot under- 
stand. What I want is more money for my work, 
so I can live better and work less. Why should I 
vote to pay these rich miners $1.29 per ounce 
for their silver, when it would do me no good? 



94 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

They will bring their silver to the mint in a bag, 
and they will hold this same bag at the hopper 
and catch every cent of it. Mexico is on a silver 
basis, but twenty-two and eight-tenths grains of 
gold will buy two Mexican silver dollars in Mex- 
ico. There is plenty of money, gold and silver ; 
and there are bank checks, bank notes, banks 
drafts. United States notes ; all are good just so 
long as they will pay them with money. I want 
more of them, and I want to be sure they can and 
will pay them with money. The only way for me 
to get more of it is to get rid of this surplus of 
labor, so there will not be a dozen men after my 
job every month, as is the case now. That can 
only be done by restricting immigration, and giv- 
ing us a tariff that will not force us to compete with 
all the low paid labor of the world. Give the 
working people good wages, and they will con- 
sume more. Give the Southern people ten cents 
per pound for their cotton at the farm. Give 
the corn raiser forty cents a bushel in the West for 
his corn. Give the coal miner from three to four 
dollars a day. Give every man who labors money 
enough so he can live well and work only eight 
hours a day ten months a year. Do not try to do 
impossible things. Let the American people live. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FOREIGN IMMIGRATION. 

IN the year 1897 we received into the United 
States 329,000 people from foreign countries. 
Thirty-seven thousand four hundred could not read 
or write in their own language. These people, 
most of whom were born in poverty and ignorance, 
and raised almost in slavery, are used to hardships 
and privations. They come to this land of free 
America, and make for us a surplus of labor; and 
by low wages drive out our American young men 
from the fields. 

It is so in our cotton mills. It is so in our min- 
ing industry. It is so in our iron and steel works, 
and it is so in many other factories and mills. 

I saw them at work building a street car line in 
the East, last summer, through the suburban towns. 
Not one American was employed on the whole 
line. No less than 68,000 Italians were received at 
Castle Garden, New York, last year, and in 1900 
they will cast their votes to make laws for the 
American people, while the young men of nineteen 
and twenty years of age in our colleges, and our 



96 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

boys from sixteen to eighteen in our high schools, 
must stand by and see these ignorant foreigners, 
from every country on the globe, walk up to the 
polls, and make laws for them. Heartless ! Cruel ! 
It is without one atom of common sense. 

I am aware of the fact that a good part of our 
foreign people who come to this country have 
made good citizens, and I think it right for us to 
take what we can use and give them the benefit of 
freedom and liberty. But when a man takes into 
his family so many poor, aged, and decrepit per- 
sons, that will starve his own family and them also, 
I think that man a fool, and a greater one when he 
will allow them to dictate to him how he shall run 
his household affairs. 

If I meet a great number of people traveling 
who are worn and sick, it is right that I should 
take into my wagon, all that I can carry comforta- 
bly and safely. But if I take in the whole multi- 
tude and break down my wagon so none of us can 
ride, I would consider it anything but common 
sense. 

I believe there should be a restriction of our im- 
migration to not less than one-third of what it is 
to-day. Not from any one country, but from all. 
This would mean better times for the American 
people, and better times for those who came. The 
foreigner who has been in this country long enough 
to learn the principles upon which this Govern- 
ment was founded, surely can see that there must 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 97 

be a restriction of our immigration, or he, too, will 
go down with the rest to poverty and distress. 

The immigration we are getting now is not the 
rosy-cheeked German or Irish lad. They are 
coming from every nook and corner of the earth. 
The poorest and lowest in the world. We are 
driving our American working men to starvation 
prices, and there is not an argument in favor of 
our keeping it up any longer. Why should we 
give to the foreign emigrants who are ignorant of 
our laws, ignorant of our institutions, ignorant of 
our language, or their own, what we withhold from 
our own American young men who are educated 
with every detail of this Government, and with the 
history of every other? 

We force our young men to remain here twenty- 
one years before we allow them to cast a vote ; 
and during all these years we are educating them, 
step by step, so they may understand the princi- 
ples of our Republican form of Government, and 
be able to use their right of franchise for the bet- 
terment of this country. As soon as they receive 
this right they find their vote killed by some for- 
eign hobgoblin, who cannot tell you the year or 
the month. These ignorant foreigners are taught 
as soon as they land that they have a vote in this 
country; and they are also' taught that that vote 
has a value. This is all that they have in this 
world that has a value, and they sell it to the high- 
est bidder. Who are those bidders? They are 



98 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

the ward heelers in our cities and towns who are 
controled by saloon keepers, gamblers, and thugs. 
You will find many of this class holding Federal 
office in this great American republic, as well as 
legislators and city councilmen. In half the States 
a foreigner can vote in six months. 

As long as I have a vote I will give it to no 
party unless that party pledges itself to establish 
a national election law that will allow no man to 
vote, or become a citizen in this country, until he 
has lived here twenty-one years, and can read and 
write the English language. 

I am aware of the fact that we have many good 
men in office in this country who are of foreign 
birth. They are the very men who are against 
making a farce of our elections. The young men 
born of foreign parents and educated in this coun- 
try are not in favor of having our ballot sold and 
bartered by men not competent to write the word 
liberty, and knows nothing of its meaning. Every 
man ought to be willing that every American citi- 
zen should have the right to express his opinion 
at the polls; and they ought also to demand that 
he should have an opinion to express. 

The Republican party has been for years trying 
to put the ignorant class in control over the edu- 
cated and intelligent class in the Southern States. 
The Republican party in the North have stumped 
the country at every Presidential campaign with 
their mouths full of poisoned venom against the 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 



99 



Southern white men. They have told the people 
in the North that all the gentlemen in the South 
were negroes. They have told us that there was 
no loyalty there except among this colored gentry. 
But when the war with Spain came on we found 
Bagleys and Hobsons there by the thousand. Who 
were they? They were of the old Revolutionary 
stock; truly American. We of the North are just 
beginning to learn that in no part of this globe 
can we find a more intelligent, braver, and truer 
class of people than right down in our Southern 
States ; and we ought by this time to appreciate 
them as American citizens. No man believes that 
the negro in the South is allowed at all times to 
cast his ballot as he wishes. It is not true. If it 
were true, it would mean ruin to most parts of that 
fair Southern land. I am not the only Northern 
man who has had his eyes opened on this question. 

It is useless to tell me that our educated Irish 
citizen, who has toiled in this country many years 
to educate his children, wants to stand at the polls 
in 1900 and see his vote killed, or that of his edu- 
cated boy, by some ignorant bear dancer from 
Poland. 

It is useless to tell me that our German citizens, 
who have been here long enough to understand 
the principles upon which this country was founded, 
and whose children have been educated in our 
high schools, wants to have their votes killed at the 
polls in 1900 by some ignorant man from Italy, 

Utfa 



lOO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

Portugal, or even from Germany, for they know 
there is no common sense in it. The boys born in 
America are educated, and we know it is not right 
to allow these ignorant men from any part of the 
world to come here and make laws for them. 

You know these are facts that I have stated, 
whether you were born in this country or some 
other. What we want is a party with the princi- 
ples of real common sense for a platform, and 
every man who wishes to benefit his condition will 
vote for it. 



CHAPTER X. 

SENATORS SHOULD BE ELECTED BY DIRECT 
VOTE OF THE PEOPLE* 

THE working people tell about the money power 
in this country enslaving the poor; they tell 
us about the millionaire buying himself into the 
United States Senate ; yet they are the very ones 
who make it possible for the millionaire to do so. 
No man ever yet bought anything until he found 
the man who had it for sale. 

The claim is made that the millionaires buy up 
our legislators, paying many times more for the 
ofBce than the entire salary would amount to for 
the full term ; and yet making millions out of the 
offtce before they retire. 

It is true that in this year [1899] our United 
States Senate is made up mostly of wealthy men. 
Nearly one-half of whom are millionaires. Some 
are rated far above that sum. Direct charges have 
been made against a number of our senators for 
bribery, but I want to tell you that " millions of 
dollars " are a stronger breastwork against the laws 
than any other barrier on the face of the earth. 



102 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

There is hardly a doubt in my mind but many 
senators have bought their seats in the American 
Congress. There is hardly a doubt in my mind 
but money is the whole thing in all our elections, 
beginning at the justice of the peace and going on 
up to the President of the United States. The 
party without money can never make much head- 
way. The strength of party to-day is in buying 
up the votes of these "hard-handed sons of toil," 
who puff and blow like a steam engine through the 
streets and in the grog shops of our cities and 
towns. The strongest pull and the surest pull for 
the Senate of the United States with our State 
Legislatures is money. The poor little fellow who 
butts up against the millionaire in the race will 
hardly know what hit him. All we can ever do is 
to make it as hard for the millionaire as we can. 
Make him spend all the money we can, and beat 
him if we can. Our only hope is to elect our sen- 
ators by the direct vote of the people. Then we 
can save our profane words we now devote to our 
legislators, and pour them out to the people where 
they now belong. 

'* Oh," but you say ** let us elect honest men to 
the Legislature ; then we will have no trouble." 

Let me give you a little picture, my friend. Our 
State Legislatures are made up of something like 
one hundred and fifty members, more or less. 
Most of them go there with the idea that in about 
four years more he will be governor of his great 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. IO3 

State, and he can also see the Senate chamber and 
the Presidential chair not far in the future. His 
cup of happiness is almost full. Not quite, how- 
ever, for he has spent a great deal of money in 
making his race; in fact, more than he thought. 
He has found that his entire salary will not begin to 
make him whole. He intends to run for the State 
Senate at the next election, and he begins to think 
about how much more money it will take to put 
him through in that race than it did to land him in 
the Legislature. 

Just as he gets deeply interested in his figures 
some one calls and introduces himself as Col. 
Brown, and wants to see him privately. As soon 
as they are alone the colonel takes out a long roll 
of paper and tells him that this bill will be brought 
up in the house at this term, and he wants his 
vote in favor of it. He explains all its good points, 
and then asks, bluntly, if he will vote for it. The 
little fellow hems and coughs, and says, he will 
think the matter over. That does not satisfy Col. 
Brown. He argues with him for some time, and 
finally tells him that he wants his support and vote 
for this bill. " But," he adds, " we do not expect 
you to work for us on this, without paying you 
well for the extra expense you are likely to incur." 
The colonel then takes out a roll of bills about 
the size of a man's leg, and chips off ten fifty dol- 
lar bills, and hands them to Mr. Jones, with the 
remark that he intends to show him that the ex- 



I04 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

pense he may unavoidably have will be paid ; and 
adds, with a smile, " You take this, and any extra 
expense will also be settled by us when the bill is 
passed." 

When the colonel has gone he sits down again 
and begins his figuring on the probable cost of his 
campaign for State senator. He soon hears a 
gentle tap on his door, and some one says : "Jones, 
are you in? " " Yes, come in. Why, how are you. 
Smith? Take a chair." " Well, Jones, I want a 
little private talk with you. No one round, is 
there, Jones?" "No, we are perfectly safe here." 
"Jones, Col. Paul has just arrived, and wanted me 
to see you and find out if you would support him 
for Senator. He wants to know tonight." "Smith, 
I cannot see how I can vote for Col. Paul, although 
I admire the colonel, and am free to admit that he 
would make us a good senator; perhaps the best 
we could get, but I halfway promised to vote for 
Bill Gordon." " Well, Jones, Col. Paul would make 
us the best senator of any man in the State. You 
know he has lots of money, and could influence 
other capital to come here and build up this coun- 
try. Besides all this, Jones, whoever sticks to the 
colonel is sure of a friend all through life. Col. 
Paul is very anxious to see you tonight, Jones ; 
and if you will see him I will call for you about 
half-past ten." "All right. Smith, I will see him; 
but I cannot see how I can conscientiously drop 
Bill Gordon." 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I05 

At eleven o'clock that night we find them in a 
little dark office up town talking to Jones of the 
benefits he will receive by voting for Col. Paul. 
But Jones still holds out for Bill Gordon. 

Finding they cannot persuade Jones they all 
leave, with the excuse that they will return in a few 
minutes, except a little hatchet-faced fellow, who 
has said nothing up to this time. As soon as the 
footsteps of the others die away the little hatchet- 
faced fellow draws up to the table before Jones, 
pulls out $200.00 in gold, and lays it on the table. 
Looking Jones squarely in the eye he says: ''Mr. 
Jones, we want your vote." Jones turns red in the 
face and rising to his feet says: ''Do you think 
you can buy me ? " The little hatchet-faced fellow 
puts his hand on his shoulder and says: "Mr. 
Jones, sit down. We want your vote," at the same 
time putting $500.00 more on the table. And as 
he stood there he added to it until that table was 
piled high with shining, glittering gold, and Jones' 
face had turned to deathly pallor. Then he took 
the little hatchet-faced fellow's hand in his trem- 
bling one and whispered, '' Col. Paul shall have my 
vote." And Col. Paul got it. 

You ask me what I think would have happened 
if they had sent some working man to the Legisla- 
ture instead of Jones? I think it would have cost 
Col. Paul less money in his race for senator. 

The human race is past finding out. One man 
condemns another, and we soon find that he is a 



1 06 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

hundred times worse than the one he condemns. 
No confidence in one another. The street car 
conductor must •* punch in the presence of the pas- 
senger." The man who holds any position of 
trust must give bonds ; on down to the clerk in the 
store who is not allowed to make change or rap up 
his sales. A check is put upon every man and no 
one is looked upon as honest. It reminds me of 
the poet who said : 

"This world is all a fleeting show, 
To man's delusion given ; 
Not an honest man left on earth, 
And hardly one in heaven." 

The only way we can do is to put a check on 
our millionaires by electing them by direct vote of 
the people. And if money is to win the election, 
let it be more evenly divided, and not let Jones 
and a few more have it all. Let the people do the 
voting, and then they can curse the people instead 
of the State Legislature. 



A 



CHAPTER XL 

"LABOR UNIONS/' 

S far back as I can recollect we have had Labor 
Unions ; and from time to time the names of 
these Unions have been changed Hke the temper- 
ance organizations. We have one organization for 
a time that seems to take, and when the interest 
begins to lag up jumps another, bearing a difTer- 
ent name ; that has a run for a while, and then 
dies like the rest. I do not object to Labor 
Unions or temperance organizations, but the 
Unions have done the laboring people no good, 
for they are working for less wages than they did 
fifteen years ago. The temperance organizations 
have done the cause no good ; and the question 
would naturally be asked, What is the matter? 
The answer would naturally be given. Neither one 
or the other have been run in the interest for 
which they were organized. 

* 

HARDSHIPS OF MANUFACTURERS AND MEN. 

The Labor Unions are usually controlled by 
men who are unfit for the positions they hold. 
They have little idea of the profits of the manu- 



I08 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

facturer, or that it is one thing to manufacture 
goods, and another thing to dispose of those 
goods at a profit. The Unions meet at their rooms 
and decide that they ought to have more pay for 
their work, so they make out a schedule of prices 
and submit them to the manufacturer. The man- 
ufacturer looks them over and sees at once that he 
cannot pay these prices and get out whole, let 
alone making a cent profit, and naturally he de- 
clines to advance the wages. 

At the next meeting of the Union the men 
decide to strike, and away they go. The manu- 
facturer has orders ahead that must be filled or 
his business will suffer, for he cannot expect to get 
orders from these firms again unless the goods are 
shipped out promptly. These Union labor people 
know this, and they say to one another, ''We have 
got him this time, and he will have to pony up." 
The manufacturer sends away to other towns for 
help, and they soon appear. The poor fellows 
have been out of work a long time, their families 
on the verge of starvation. They have come many 
miles to take the place of the strikers. You can 
see poverty and despair written upon every one of 
their faces, just as plainly as if it had been written 
there with ink. When they arrive at the factory 
they are met by the Union labor people, and what 
do you see written upon their faces? Not the 
words that are written in the holy book, "Love 
thy neighbor as thyself; " not the words, "Love one 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. IO9 

another," but you see written there, revenge, hatred, 
and murder. It is just as plainly stamped there 
as despair is stamped on the faces of those whom 
they are calling scabs. 

You will not have to wait long before the fight 
begins, and it is a desperate one. Despair on the 
one, revenge on the other. Poor hard-working 
men battling for an existence on one side ; poor, 
hard-working men battling for an existence on the 
other. The blood of each flows freely ; legs and 
arms are broken, and some are killed. Police are 
called out, arrests are made, and guards placed 
over the factory. Still the fight goes on from day 
to day, and weeks lengthen into months. 

The strikers have suffered in those months more 
than words can tell. Their wives and children 
have suffered as no tongue can portray. And 
what is the result? The men go back at the old 
prices. The manufacturer has lost a good part of 
his business, so he can give them work but a part 
of the time. The working people are in debt, with 
no clothes for themselves or families. Thousands 
of dollars have been sent in from other Unions, 
which have worked a hardship upon those who 
sent it. The expenses of the great mogul who 
came to take charge of the strike had to be paid, 
and nothing is left them but the cold north wind, 
which reminds them of their terrible condition. 
Yet they keep up their lodges. They still have 
their leaders to support in idleness, and every year 



I lO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

their condition is worse than the year before. At 
every decade they are nearer to the level of the 
working people of the old countries. How long 
they will keep it up, time alone will tell. 

Certainly, I will tell you what I would have done 
had I been a member of the Union, and wanted 
the manufacturer to advance our wages. I would 
have said to the Union that I believed every man- 
ufacturer should make five per cent, on the output 
of his factory. Of course I know that not one 
manufacturer in a thousand is making that much 
net profit; but I think he should. I would have 
said to the men in the Union, ** Before we strike let 
us make a proposition to the firm." I would have 
drawn up a petition something like this : 

"We, the undersigned employees of your factory, 
are not satisfied with the wages being paid us, and 
respectfully ask that our wages be raised fifteen 
per cent, forthwith. 

'•We think you should be well satisfied with five 
per cent, net profit on the output of your factory, 
and we agree to furnish you with men from our 
Union who will place the products of your factory 
at prices so you can make the five per cent, net 
profit, and pay us the advance in wages we ask." 

If I was not capable of placing the manufact- 
urer's output at prices where he could do this, and 
could find no one in the Union who could, I would 
never strike. You may say he would not do this. 
I claim that he would. If you are able to place 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I I I 

the output of any factory at prices where the man- 
ufacturer can make a net profit of five per cent., 
you need not work more than ten years before the 
interest on your money will keep you in luxury 
the rest of your life. 

MANUFACTURERS NOT MAKING THE PROFIT 
THEY ARE ENTITLED TO. 

The cold hard facts are : The manufacturer is 
not making five per cent, profit on the output of his 
factory, and cannot advance your wages ; neither 
can you take his output and sell it so he can make 
a net profit of five per cent, and no man who be- 
longs to your Union can do it. The manufacturer 
himself cannot do it, neither can he find a man 
who can. 

Any man who has money can manufacture 
goods, but the hardest part and the most essential 
part of the business is selling them at a profit; and 
the laboring man never thinks of this. If your 
Union people are so smart, and know just what 
the manufacturer can or cannot do, why don't they 
manufacture a few goods themselves? It is a very 
easy matter to sit down and tell about how much 
the manufacturer is making, but it is not true. 
The manufacturers of the United States are not 
making a net profit of five per cent, as a whole ; 
and as a whole cannot pay higher wages than they 



112 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

now pay. You cannot get a Union man to believe 
this, and yet there are none of them capable of 
disposing of the goods at a profit, no matter how 
much money you may offer them to do so. And 
for this reason I take it for granted that they can- 
not do anything they say they can. 

The Unions are a good thing, rightly managed ; 
but their policy should be to bring about the con- 
ditions by which the manufacturer could pay them 
a fair wage, and then make him do it; or, in other 
words, I want to see the Unions work for better 
wages for the laboring man, and not work to keep 
him down, as they have been doing the past twenty 
years. 

Do you expect the American manufacturer of 
cotton goods to pay his men two dollars a day 
while the Englishman pays only fifty cents a day, 
and still compete with the Englishman? You 
know better. You know he cannot do it. There 
is no use in argument on such a question. Then 
why do you not make laws to shut those goods out 
of this country, instead of voting for free trade ; 
Do you expect to win a strike when there are a 
hundred thousand hungry men ready to take your 
places ? You know you cannot do that. Then why 
do you not vote for congressmen who will work to 
restrict emigration, and get rid of some of this 
surplus labor? 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. II3 

THE AMERICAN BOY BADLY USED. 

I want to call your attention to one other thing 
that your Unions do that is not right. In many 
factories you do not allow the manufacturer to take 
in young men and learn them the trade. The 
young man comes here from the old countries, 
having learned his trade there. He joins the 
Union and gets a job while the American boy is 
shut out. There is nothing right in this, and I 
shall do all I can to stop it. You want good wages 
for your labor in the factory, but you want the 
farmer to raise what you have to buy from him for 
almost nothing; but you do not think that unLss 
the farmer gets a good price for what he produces 
he cannot buy many of the goods you make. 



DISHONESTY THE GREAT TROUBLE. 

The farmer tries to get a good price for his 
produce, but he does his level best to get what you 
produce at the factory for almost nothing, not 
thinking that unless you are well paid you cannot 
buy very much of what he produces. It is dog 
eat dog from one end of this country to the other. 
Every working man doing his very best to pull the 
rest of the laboring men to the bottom ; and sym- 
pathy for the poor man is wasted. They have 
worked against one another ever since the world 



114 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

began, and no doubt but they will continue to do 
so until the end of time. 

The Unions have no confidence in one another. 
They meet and swear by all that is great and holy 
that they will buy no goods except they are Union 
made. A few will stick to their promise. The bal- 
ance, knowing that the manufacturer paying Union 
prices for labor cannot sell his goods as cheap as 
the one using scabs and paying low wages, will 
skulk around and buy the goods where he can buy 
the cheapest ; then go to the Union and take an 
oath that he never bought anything but Union 
made goods in his life. The men who do stick to 
their pledge find it out, and get disgusted, then go 
and do the same thing; and the objects of the 
Union are defeated. 

If the laboring men would be honest with one 
another, and vote for laws that would help them, 
it would not be long before America would be the 
Eden of the world. Eight hours a day ten months 
in the year, with pay enough so you can have the 
comforts of life and save something for old age, 
should be the policy of every working man. But 
instead they vote for free trade, and allow the man- 
ufactured goods to come in free, and they must 
compete with them. 

The farmer votes for free sugar, which forces him 
to raise cheap corn, cheap wheat, and cheap cot- 
ton. They cry out for expansion and annexation, 
knowing that the pauper labor from other coun- 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 11$ 

tries will force them to work still cheaper. They 
grasp at the shadow of free silver, knowing that it 
such a law was in effect it could do them no good. 
They worry about trusts, and who shall run the 
railroads and telegraph wires, knowing that who- 
ever owns them they will be forced to pay the 
same rates. They never think about establishing 
conditions where they are to be benefited, and 
never will. 



CHAPTER XIL 

CONDITIONS OF THE COUNTRY IN 1899. 

WE have now had two years of Republican 
administration. Let us take a look at the 
conditions of the American working people to-day, 
and the prospects for them in the future. To me 
it looks as if the future had nothing in store for 
them but lower wages and harder times. Let us 
look at the Chicago Journal of to-day (Feb. 7 : 

1899): 

" All day long streams of destitute persons is- 
sued forth from the entrance to the City Hall into 
the intense cold without. Most of those in this 
current of humanity had asked Secretary Campbell, 
of the Police Department, for food ; but were as 
hungry as when they came. Others had pleaded 
for coal, but there was none for them. Yet others 
had asked for clothes to keep Jack Frost at bay, 
but they were as scantily clad as when they came. 
Mothers with babes in their arms were in that dis- 
consolate river of life — old tottering men, young 
wives and white-haired women. They lingered 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 11/ 

about the radiators in the hall, and only reluctantly 
turned into the street. 

"We can give no assistance," said Capt. Camp- 
bell,^ Secretary of the Police Department. " We 
have no funds. We are bankrupt." 

What makes the above more damnable is to read 
the following: "Twenty thousand Cubans are be- 
ing fed daily at the expense of the United States." 
Thus we find the conditions on this cold February 
night, 1899, after two years of Republican 
administration. 

Five thousand brave American boys have been 
laid away under the sod in the past ten months, 
and they are still dying with disease, and being 
killed. Many of these boys were taken from high 
schools and colleges and sent out to battle on a 
plea of patriotism. 

Yet this is not the worst. Here is what the 
Chicago Times-Herald, of May 28, 1898, says: 
" The little babe two months old of Edward Linsey, 
private, Seventh Regiment, I. N. G., died at its 
mother's breast of starvation. Private Linsey is at 
Camp Tanner with his regiment, which has been 
mustered into the service of the United States. 
Private Linsey went to the front with his regiment 
with the consent of his wife, and because he could 
not get work in Chicago. Although a capable 
workman for Gormully & Jeffrey, the discharge of 
a large number of men left him idle for two months. 
He could not find work. His regiment was or- 



I I 8 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

dered out. He said to his wife : ** I will go, and 
the money I get for being a soldier I will send 
to you." But his baby died of starvation yes- 
terday morning, in a bare room at 240 Orleans 
Street. 

"The coroner came, and he said, after careful 
examination, that the mother had been so long 
without food that her milk would not support the 
little one, and it died of starvation. 

"The wife only twenty-six years old called in 
another poor woman and the two went to the 
Rookery Building, the headquarters of the Relief 
Society of the Seventh Regiment, and asked for 
aid. The answer was: 'We will send some one 
around to see you.' He did not come, although 
again the cry went down to the Rookery Building: 
* I need food and help.' So she sat in the little 
room caring for the little boy toddling about her 
and the baby that was crying at a breast that would 
not nourish. 

" The father was begging for his pitiful thirteen 
dollars a month at Camp Tanner, but the money 
did not come. The days passed, and with the 
dawn of yesterday the baby shut its eyes, and the 
thin lips came away from the tired and exhausted 
mother's breast forever." 

I say there is no excuse for this. It is con- 
temptible ! It is damnable ! 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. II 9 

QUESTIONS HARD TO ANSWER. 

Why are we at war with the savages of the 
Eastern Hemisphere? Why are we spending a 
million dollars a day in Cuba and the Philippines, 
and sapping the life's blood of our own people by 
taxation ? Why are we feeding forty thousand bar- 
barous people, who are never happy unless cutting 
somebody's throat, and leaving our own people to 
die of hunger and cold? Why are we so anxious 
to feed the Cuban soldiers, and let the children of 
our American soldiers starve to death, while the 
mother cries out in vain for help? Why are we 
so anxious to annex those countries to this with its 
low-paid labor, and force our farmers and our me- 
chanics to live as they live? Why has this Gov- 
ernment lost sight of the distress of the American 
people? Why are they willing to sacrifice our 
young men in those tropical climates, when one 
company of American boys are worth more to the 
world than all the Cubans and Filipinos that were 
ever born, or that ever will be born? 

I can tell you why it is so. The free distribu- 
tion of Cuban bonds has done it. The lives of 
our American boys are being sold and bartered 
away for a promise of reward. 

Let us take a calm sober view of the situation, 
and see why we declared war against Spain. Some 
will contend it was on account of the blowing up 
of the Maine ; but you have only to read the 



I20 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

declaration of war by President McKinley to disa- 
buse your minds of that thought. We could not 
declare war on account of the blowing up of the 
Maine, and hold our own self respect. McKinley 
knew this, and declared it was for ** humanity's 
sake" to free Cuba, and not on account of the 
destruction of the Maine. Even he had his doubts 
about the Maine being blown up by the Spanish ; 
just such doubts as a conscientious man might feel 
of the guilt of an accused person when the evi- 
dence was circumstantial and not absolutely con- 
clusive, but enough to tone down that part of 
his message to Congress in which he treated of 
the Maine. If President McKinley had been able 
to dispel those lingering doubts, the message would 
have been more vigorous. The United States had 
given Spain to understand that if the cruelties in 
Cuba did not cease, our people would intervene to 
stop them. The blowing up of the Maine was a 
dastardly, treacherous act, but the Spanish gov- 
ernment promptly disavowed the deed, and called 
for a disinterested tribunal of arbitration, and 
promised reparation if found responsible for 
negligence. 

Not many years ago a mob of American citizens 
broke into a prison in New Orleans and shot a 
number of Italian subjects who were awaiting trial. 
Italy demanded redress. We paid a large indem- 
nity, although our Government declared its inno- 
cence. Now would Italy have been justified in 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 121 

declaring war against us because certain individ- 
uals had murdered her citizens in cold blood? 
No more have we any right to hold Spain as a 
nation -responsible for the act of some wretch 
who assassinated our noble boys and destroyed the 
Maine. War was not declared on account of the 
blowing up of the Maine, but for the sole purpose 
of freeing Cuba; and President McKinley himself 
said so. I contend that the United States had no 
legal right to declare war against Spain. And I 
contend further that the sacrifices this country has 
made and is still making are too great for the 
results to be obtained. The Cubans are unlike 
our people. They are half-civilized, hot blooded, 
and can only be governed by extreme laws and 
extreme measures. 

• 

HARDSHIPS OF THE AMERICAN BOYS. 

We sent to Cuba last summer during the very 
sickly season 20,000 of the very best boys we had 
in America ; many of them are still there ; many 
more are in the Philippines. These young men 
were sent out to those terrible countries, which are 
hot, malarious, and deathly, to fight the Spaniards. 
Not to uphold the honor of the United States, not 
to protect the American flag, or the American 
citizen, but to free Cuba. Those boys laid out 
there in the wilds of that terrible, deathly island, 



122 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

through the hot summer days, burning with a high 
fever, and with their tongues parched and swollen. 
No water except that taken from lagoons, of which 
every swallow breeds death. Lying out there in 
those swamps, bleeding, mangled, and torn, crying, 
in their agony of death, My God ! My God ! 

As I sit at my desk in the glory of this bright 
spring morning, and look out upon the swelling 
buds and fast coming leaves, which tell the story 
of nature's resurrection, I say within my soul that 
one of our boys is worth more to the world than 
all the savages of the earth. 

Where comes this " for humanity's sake" that 
we hear so much about ? Was it humanity to stand 
by and see our own Americans hungry and cold, 
and not give them a rag or a bite to eat, while we 
feed and clothe twenty thousand Cubans? Was 
it humanity to send money to pay the Cuban sol- 
dier, and stand by and see the children of our 
American soldiers starve to death because we 
would not pay them the little pittance of thirteen 
dollars per month that they had earned? Shame! 
Shame ! 

What is it we hear from the Philippine Islands? 
The Filipinos are striving to be free. They have 
a Constitution and a Congress. They have an 
army of fifty thousand men. They are trying to 
live under their own government. Talk about our 
carrying liberty and blessings to all mankind. 
Every once in a while we see in the papers that 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 23 

several thousand Filipinos had been killed, and 
twice as many more wounded, while our loss was 
only a few. The fact is, we do not know our loss. 
The men who are at the head of this Government 
are not telling us ; but the time will come when 
we shall know. The mothers of this country are 
finding it out every day. 

The cry of Secretary Long in his speech at 
Boston was, ** Who will pull down the American 
flag wherever it has been raised?" There will be 
millions of patriotic Americans who will pull it 
down whenever it is raised over a people who are 
striving to be free, and they will bring that flag 
back to America and wipe off the dirt and dust 
put upon it by this Republican administration. 
And although they can never erase from it the 
blood of our grand, noble boys. Secretary Long 
and the balance of the millionaires in Congress 
and the Senate will learn in November, 1900, that 
the conscience of the American people is not dead. 

We have another Secretary (Mr. Gage), who 
said at a meeting in Washington in justification of 
this war in the Philippines, *' Christian civilization 
and five per cent." 

The President once said, "Forcible annexation 
would be criminal aggression." Still criminal ag- 
gression goes on. 

It has certainly proved a fine ending for a war 
begun for humanity and liberty to find us killing 
Filipinos, whose only offence is to resist the attempt 



124 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

by US to deprive them of that independence, which 
for years past they have been spending their Hves 
and treasure to attain. 

One argument used in favor of the annexation 
of Cuba and the Philippines is that they are in- 
capable of self government. If that is so, why 
should we be so anxious to make them citizens of 
the United States? We certainly have enough of 
that class with us now. 

* 

WHAT ANNEXATION MEANS. 

The one great reason why we should not annex 
those countries is plain and simple. By doing so 
our farmers, who now raise corn, wheat, and cotton, 
would be obliged to sell those products for less 
money. Less money means a harder life, less to 
eat, less to wear, less to spend, and less education 
for their children. It means more. It means that 
our farmers must come down to the same plane as 
the inhabitants of those islands. 

When you reduce the condition of the farmers 
of the United States, you reduce the condition of 
every man who toils. The foundation of this coun- 
try is the farmers ; and to make this country pros- 
perous you must first make the farmer prosperous. 
Will you do it by the annexation of Cuba, Hawaii, 
and the Philippines? Let us see how it would 
work. We have 600,000 acres in tobacco, which 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 25 

produces 500,000,000 pounds. With the cheap 
labor in those countries, and tobacco admitted free, 
do you suppose our tobacco growers could com- 
pete with them? 

**Well," say the men who raise wheat, corn, and 
cotton, *' let them raise something else. We will 
buy our tobacco where we can buy the cheapest." 
Yet there is nothing else for them to do with their 
land except to put it in wheat, corn, or cotton. Do 
you get too large a price for your corn and wheat 
now, Mr. Farmer? Do you, Mr. Cotton Grower, 
get too much for your cotton? Could you get 
more for these products if everybody else went 
into the business? Do you, Mr. Mechanic, expect 
to get a better price for your labor when the 
farmers have no money to spend ? Have you lived 
all this time and do not know that when the farmers 
are prosperous you are prosperous? Let the 
farmer go down, and as sure as the sun rises you 
will go down with him. I do not care what business 
you are in, or what labor you may perform, there 
is no way to benefit you except to give to the 
farmers a better price for their products. And to 
accomplish this you must give them something by 
which they can reduce their acreage, and by this 
means reduce the supply. 

The question is how can you do this? If yon 
put a duty of five cents per pound on sugar, and 
a good high tariff on jute, hemp, and other textiles, 
you will reduce the acreage of corn, wheat, and 



126 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

cotton. If you raise the $100,000,000 worth of 
sugar you now buy from other countries, you will 
reduce the acreage enough so the corn and wheat 
raisers and cotton growers will not be obliged to 
compete with all the low-paid labor of the world, 
and they could then live as Americans ought to 
live. You cannot make the American farmers 
prosperous without making every other man in 
this country prosperous. 

Now what effect will the annexation of Cuba, 
Hawaii, and the Philippines have on the American 
farmer? It would simply force him to raise cheap 
corn, cheap wheat, and cheap cotton. Not only 
cheap, but lower prices must prevail than ever 
before. 

Free tobacco from Cuba will, with the cheap 
labor there and big plantations run by large cor- 
porations, produce tobacco so cheap that it will 
force our tobacco growers in the North to quit the 
business, and raise corn and wheat; and it will 
force the tobacco grower in the South to raise 
cotton. The more corn and wheat you raise the 
lower it will get. Not only will the annexation of 
those countries lower the price of farm products, 
but it will bring thousands of Malays, Cubans, and 
Chinese to this country to lower the wages of our 
mechanics, and to compete with the farmer in his 
products of the soil. 

You men who toil, I care not what occupation 
you may follow, cannot be aware of the effect 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS, 12/ 

which such annexation would have upon your 
wages and incomes. 

I take the following from the editorial column of 
the Boston Herald: 

. '* The number of inhabitants of the Philippine 
Islands is unknown, from the fact that the interior 
of one of the large islands — Mindanao — has never 
been entered by its nominal Spanish rulers, and 
hence it is only known that in its valleys along the 
hillsides reside an enormous number of natives. 
Mohammedan Malays, in their relations to the 
Spanish government, are about as independent as 
though they had never heard of Spain. The 
number of these people in this and the smaller 
islands is variously estimated from seven to fifteen 
millions. Of course, if we took possession, we 
would not be satisfied by collecting a few hundred 
dollars revenue at one or two trading points upon 
the coast. To be useful to us the Philippines must 
be made to realize the benefits of modern civiliza- 
tion by paying taxes. It has been said that the 
semi-savage life of the South Sea Islands, with its 
independence, absence of worry, responsibility, and 
work is preferable to the English wage earner with 
a family to support. 

'* No doubt but what the Malays might in time 
be taught the useful arts of- industry and become 
wage earners, but their advantage as wage earners 
will consist for a long time to come, possibly for a 
generation or two, in the fact that their services 



128 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

can be obtained for such a relatively small remuner- 
ation. These Malays would consider themselves 
well paid if they received eight or ten cents per 
day. It would quickly be discovered by all forms 
of contractors that in the Philippine Islands the 
United States possessed a large and untried reser- 
voir of cheap labor. 

"We have emigration laws and alien laws that 
prevent the Chinese from coming to this country. 
We prohibit contracting for labor to be brought 
from foreign countries, but the Philippines in our 
possession no statute of this kind would be in the 
least restrictive. If we should annex those islands 
they would be citizens of this country, and under 
the Constitution would have equal protection and 
opportunities of our laws. These Malays under 
such circumstances would have the right to come 
and go as they pleased. And considering the 
developments of the contract system and the power 
which an hereditary potentate in the East has over 
those who are bound by religious as well as other 
ties to obey him, it would indeed be strange if ar- 
rangements were not quickly begun by which, 
through payment to local native authorities, thou- 
sands upon thousands of Malays from the Philip- 
pine Islands might be brought to this country to 
enter into those various classes of work which re- 
quire merely unskilled labor ; and this system 
would be far lower than that to which our Italian 
contract labor ever descended. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 29 

"We also have to consider that there is a large 
Chinese population in the Philippines, and it will 
be no easy matter to prevent its growth there, 
considering the ease with which native vessels can 
land Chinese emigrants upon any of the hundred 
islands ; and when once established as citizens of 
the Philippine Islands, then by the same token 
they will also be citizens of the United States and 
no law can keep them out of this country." 

These are the conditions that will surely come if 
the Philippines and Cuba are annexed to the 
United States. 

The territory we have annexed from time to 
time in the past is very different from the countries 
we are now trying to bring into our Union, from the 
fact that it lay in the Temperate Zone and joined 
our own ; besides it was unoccupied by any great 
number of people, and nothing to obstruct our 
progress and work. You must have a climate and 
soil adaptable to raising good men and women, or 
the crop will be a bad one, and, like poor potatoes, 
unfit for market. 

The conditions are very different in Cuba and 
the Philippines than in our great South and West 
that has been added to the United States in the 
past hundred years. First, those countries are 
more densely populated than most of the States of 
this Union, and populated by a race that is not 
likely in many generations to lay down the musket 
and take up the implements of industry. More 



I30 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

good American money would have to be expended 
in those countries to rid the cities and towns of 
their pest holes, and make them fit for habitation, 
than it would cost to run the Government of the 
United States. 

• 

WHAT THE AMERICANS HAVE TO CONTEND 
WITH HERE. 

We found in this country 3,000,000 American 
Indians. To-day we have 250,000. We have 
done everything that could be done to educate 
them that they might be self-supporting and take 
a place among men. We have been sadly disap- 
pointed in the result, but we can take heart, for 
there is now only 250,000 more to civilize; and 
the crack of the rifle keeps on diminishing the 
number. 

We have not had much better success with the 
Southern negro, notwithstanding the money that 
has been expended upon them, and the right to 
vote and hold ofifice given them. Forty years have 
now past, and we read from one of the most intel- 
ligent of their race (Booker Washington) these 
words: 

•* It is unfortunate that my people permitted 
themselves at the close of the war to be led in 
such a wholesale manner into politics. I do not 
believe it is wise for the Government nor just to the 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I31 

people to confer unlimited suffrage upon any- 
ignorant people." 

Thus we find we have had very poor success 
with the lower races of our own country, and how 
can we expect to have success with a race that is 
still lower? 

• 

WHAT THE WORKING PEOPLE CAN EXPECT. 

The American people must arouse themselves 
and take the reins of government out of the hands 
of the men who are plotting these changes for the 
profit of a few politicians and rich corporations. 
Unless you do, you will find it harder each year to 
gain a respectable living, and your children will be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water. In the 
older countries the children follow the father. 
The father toils day by day for a mere existence. 
The boy looks for nothing better than his father 
had, and it goes on from generation to generation. 
Is it not getting that way very fast in this country? 
Is there much chance to-day for the poor boy that 
can have but a common school education to ever 
get into business? 

How many of our working people can now 
afford to keep their boys in school, free as they 
are, until they graduate at the high school? There 
are hundreds of thousands that cannot, but are 
forced to take them out that they may earn their 



132 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

pittance for the support of the family. In the 
State of Massachusetts, where they boast so much 
about their educational advantages, not one boy in 
a hundred ever graduates at the high school, and 
not one in thirty ever reach it. No wonder the 
supervisor of census at Washington said that 'The 
most ignorance displayed in making out applica- 
tion for service under the census law came from 
Massachusetts." 

• 

WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST ACQUIRE TO 
SUCCEED. 

Young men must now have almost a complete 
education before they can secure a situation in any 
mercantile business, and the first few years the 
salary is so low that it will not pay board, so that 
none but the sons of the well-to-do can enter that 
line. The following clipping from the New York 
Sun covers the whole situation : 



YOUNG MEN WANTED! 

'♦ Wanted : by our merchants; 

Young men about nineteen, 
Living with their parents, 

Must be bright and clean ; 
Tolerable writers. 

Quick at figures, too, 
Also know book-keeping 

Right straight through and through, 
Understand typewriting 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 33 

And stenography, 
Know three different languages, 

And how to write all three ; 
And, too, they must have letters 

From those for whom they've worked, 
Stating they are honest, 

And that they never shirked. 
They must be high school graduates. 

And be filled with useful knowledge. 
But the preference will be given 

To those who've been through college. 
Now, the bright young men fulfilling 

The above requirements, 
Will get a weekly salary — 

Of two dollars and fifty cents." 

— From the New York Sun. 



I have just been reading a long editorial in one 
of our great dailies about the increase in our ex- 
ports of manufactured goods. He tells us about 
the great strides we are making in securing the 
markets of the world, and about the prospects for 
trade in our newly possessed territory. He does 
not tell us wJiy we are exporting more manu- 
factured goods, but here is an editorial clipped 
from the Bosto7i Herald, dated Oct. 15, 1898, 
which does tell and tells it plainly: 

" A short time ago we called attention to a 
highly interesting series of articles that appeared 
in the American Wool and Cotton Reporter, on the 
question of labor cost of weaving in American and 
English cotton mills. This comparative exhibit 
has been extended by our contemporary by a very 
carefully prepared statement of the comparative 



134 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

cost of spinning various threads of cotton -yarns 
in English and American Mills. 

"After a careful technical summary of the 
manner in which in England the price for spinning 
yarn is arrived at, the Reporter says, taking New 
Bedford as a town : ' The most of the spinning mules 
used there contain 900 spindles or more, and the 
piecers and back-boys are paid by the spinners. 
Thus a pair of short mules of 1200 spindles, 
spinning 23's, earns $9.27 a week. The back-boy 
is paid 35 cents a day, or $2.10 a week by the 
company, and no piecer is allowed. The cost in 
wages is $11.37 for spinner and back-boy. The 
production is 1500 pounds per week, at a cost for 
spinner and back-boy wages of about seven mills 
per pound. In England, the same production costs 
the manufacturers, with the addition for course 
counts and the use of tubes, $16,97; 0^ nearly a 
half more than it costs the American manufacturer 
per pound. 

'"Take another example : The spinner pays a 
piecer $5.22 per week, and a back-boy $2.45 per 
week; the mules contain 180 spindles, running on 
50's, producing 27 hanks per spindle, or 48,608 
hanks per week of 58 hours. The price paid is 
.0333 per hundred hanks, or $16.18 per week. The 
weight is 972 pounds, and costs the manufacturer 
i^ cents per pound for spinning. In England the 
prices for spinning the same under the same con- 
ditions, would be $16.68 per hundred pounds. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 35 

The difference in this respect is but slight, but, 
such as it is, it shows that the English manu- 
facturer pays more for the same work than the 
American manufacturer.' " 

This is the reason our exports are increasing. 
Lower wages in America than in England, and it 
shows conclusively that the Hon. James T. Stock- 
well did lie when he told us this was the best 
country in the world. 

Turn back and read that editorial of the Boston 
Herald over again. American boys working in 
the cotton mills at New Bedford, Mass., at $2.10 
a week. The spinner getting $9.27 per week and 
pay the piecer. Less money, says the Boston 
Herald, than they pay the mill hands in England. 
For what purpose do you suppose God created 
that boy who is working in that mill for $2.10 per 
week? That boy should be out playing in the 
free air that God made for him, and hell is good 
enough for the man who would have such condi- 
tions in this country in order to compete for the 
markets of the world. 



EVERY DOLLAR'S WORTH OF TRADE FROM 
THE PHILIPPINES WILL COST TEN. 

A great deal has been said in free trade papers 
about our exports of American machinery, and it 
is true we are exporting American machinery. 



136 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

Not long ago a Pennsylvania firm shipped a lot of 
woolen mill machinery to China, and what will be 
the result of it? Exactly this : We shall receive 
millions of dollars' worth of woolen goods into 
this country made by the cheapest labor in the 
world to compete with the boy working in our 
American mills at $2.10 per week ; and the boy 
will have to work for less money. 

Thomas B. Reed said, in regard to the Philip- 
pines as a market for American manufactures, that 
"Every dollar's worth of trade that we could ever 
hope to get from those islands will cost us ten." 

Thomas B. Reed, I think, is the brainiest man 
in this country to-day. Not only will it cost us 
more money than it comes to, but it will carry our 
working people down with the tide until they are 
on the same plane with those Filipinos. 

Every dollar's worth of imported manufactured 
goods forces out some man from our mills, and he 
must seek the fields in order to live. Every man 
who starts the plow adds to the surplus of farm 
products, and these farm products are cheapened. 
Every time the farm products are cheapened the 
consumption of manufactured goods is lessened. 
Every time the consumption is lessened the wages 
of every man who toils is lowered, and every time 
the wages of the working man is lowered, he will 
have less to eat and less to wear. Whenever you 
give a man less to eat and less to wear, you take 
away from him just that per cent, of his manhood. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 37 

A man well fed and well clothed is a hundred 
times better mentally, physically, and morally than 
the man poorly fed and poorly clothed. I believe 
in bringing the standard of the American people 
up, in preference to any other people on the earth. 
Foreign countries buy from us what they need, 
nothing more. When you force our farmers to 
raise corn, wheat, and cotton at prices that do not 
pay them a respectable living through fear of 
a Chinese wall, you defeat the object for which 
this country was proclaimed. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

IT is now March i, 1900, and let us thank God 
we are living. McKinley and Bryan is the 
battle cry. The date of the Conventions have 
been fixed. Bryan is to be nominated at Kansas 
City, July 4. The great mass of working people 
in this country will rally around him, and listen to 
the sweet words that fall from his lips. He will 
tell them of the great crime of 1873, and that he 
intends when he gets the keys to the great vault to 
open it wide and pour forth to them the shining 
white metal on a ratio of sixteen to one, free as 
the air, so that every poor man will be able to pay 
his debts, and buy himself a beautiful home, where 
he can sit himself down in the sunshine with noth- 
ing to do but gaze upon the magnificent works 
of nature forever and forever. McKinley and 
Hanna will don their spring suits, trimmed with 
gold lace, waving the Cuban flag, and crying out 
in a loud voice to their disciples: "Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." They will gather unto him 
and listen to the golden words as they glisten and 
sparkle in the midday sun. They will tell about 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 39 

the great wave of prosperity that has swept over 
the land They will tell about the advance in 
wages. They will tell about the higher prices for 
wheat, corn, and cotton. They will tell about ex- 
ports of manufactured goods. They will tell about 
the glorious flag floating proudly in two hemis- 
pheres. They will sing you the song about Lib- 
erty, Fraternity, and Equality, and they will ask 
you to vote the Republican ticket. 

The United States industrial commission have 
been investigating the condition of the laboring 
and producing classes for the past six months, and 
will soon submit the report to Congress. This 
report will prove for the benefit of the Republican 
party in the coming election that the farmers, 
laborers, and mechanics in all industries are thriv- 
ing as never before ; increasing their luxuries and 
their bank accounts and getting a bigger share of 
a larger product than ever before in this country. 
Let us look over the country and see how the real 
facts will compare with that report. 

Here is a despatch to the Bosto7i Herald from 
Chicago, dated March 6, 1900, and is headed, 
"Fifty Thousand Idle." It says: 

"Building material firms which supply the Chi- 
cago market voted to-day to close their plants 
until conditions in the "building industry here 
changed for the better. By closing, 10,000 men 
employed in stone quarries, brickyards, and plants 
where lime, cement, and other materials are 



I40 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS, 

handled, are made idle. This makes the total 
number of unemployed men in this city 50,000." 



WHAT HUNGER AND COLD WILL DO. 

Here is another under date of March 9th: 

"Nicholas J. Canfield, eighteen years old, was 
arrested last night for setting fire, yesterday after- 
noon, to one of the Boston & Maine hay sheds at 
Charlestown. He made a full confession to Fire 
Marshall Whitcomb, and said his reason for setting 
the fire was because he was 'sick and tired of 
looking for work,' and thought he 'might get a job 
loading the damaged hay on to wagons.' He has 
been hanging around the railroad yards for the 
past year, living from hand to mouth and sleeping 
about the freight sheds." 

There are thousands of youths in this land of 
liberty to-day who are tired and sick of looking 
for work, and who are driven to commit crime by 
hunger and cold. Millions of money for the poor 
Cubans but not a dollar for the poor, half-starved, 
half-clothed American boy. Put this boy Canfield in 
prison, and if you have any money to spare send 
it to the negroes in the South, or to the poor 
Cubans. Don't do any thing for the boys at home. 

The following is from Lowell, Mass., under date 
of March 27, 1900: 

"About 150 weavers of the Faulkner's Mill of 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I4I 

the American Woolen Company are out on strike, 
on account of the refusal to grant them the scale 
of wages they demanded. The company offers 
advantages under a premium list which would give 
$1.60 a month for each weaver who could earn 
$32.00; but the weavers say it is impossible to 
earn more than $28.00 per month under present 
conditions." 

I notice in the Protectionist for February, 1900, 
that the wages of cotton and woolen operatives 
was increased in April, 1899, ten per cent., and 
again in December ten per cent. If that be true, 
the weavers were only receiving $22.40 per month 
prior to April, 1899, and yet this same Protectionist 
and the Republican campaign orator will tell you 
the working people of this country are thriving as 
never before. A man earning only $28.00 per 
month with a family to support will never have a 
home. Surely things ought to be changed. I 
would not be surprised if the Republicans had the 
unmitigated gall to insert in their platform at the 
next National Convention a plank favoring a pro- 
tective tariff, to protect the poor laboring men 
against the pauper labor of other countries. It is 
wonderful the amount of cheek they have ! 

The Hawaiian revolution was brought about by 
Americans in Hawaii who were interested in 
making sugar; and from that day to the present 
these same Americans have constituted an oli- 
garchy, and the mass of the people have had no 



142 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

share whatever in the political control. Labor on 
the sugar plantations are nearly all Japanese and 
Chinese coolies, who are brought there under con- 
tract, and who are really slaves of the planters. 
The plantations there are fast coming into the 
hands of the American millionaires. It is said 
Mr. Spreckles will produce on his Hawaiian plan- 
tation this year 50,000 tons of sugar. If our 
American millionaires will use slave labor in 
Hawaii, they will use it here if you give them a 
chance; and you do give them a chance. You 
curse them and the trusts, but you send them to 
Congress and the Senate to make laws for you, 
and they have very nearly squeezed the life out of 
you. I am willing that the savages of the earth 
look out for themselves, and not willing to bring 
the conditions of our working people any lower 
for their sake. 

When we come to sum up the whole situation 
we find the working people responsible for all the 
poverty and hard times. They made every trust, 
brought about every reduction of wages, sent every 
millionaire to Congress and the Senate that is there 
to-day; made prisons of the factories and mills, 
made every law that is detrimental to their interest, 
and you can depend upon them to continue in this 
course until they are on a level with the poor of 
other lands. 

There are in nearly every town and city in the 
United States Chinese laundries run by Chinamen. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 43 

They live and thrive just because you patronize 
them instead of giving the work to some good old 
Irish or German women, who will spend the money 
right in your town. The Chinaman will send the 
money back to China, and buy from his own coun- 
try his clothing and shoes, and live on rice which 
you allow shipped in free of duty. You are a 
smart set, you working people. Yes, you are. 

The Republicans are going to tell you about the 
advance in the price of cotton and corn, and I want 
to tell you what a colored editor in Athens, Ga., 
says in regard to the emigration fever that has 
taken hold of the colored people there : 

"Many have gone already to the far South 
[Florida], and to the Southwest [Texas], being 
the favorite goal. Many more are preparing to go, 
and many are waiting in the city for transportation. 
The most of these people are farmers. The reason 
why they remove is a plain and intelligible one. 
They made scarcely anything last year, and they 
find themselves at the beginning of this penniless 
and with few whites willing to advance to them the 
means of living and of making a new crop." 

We know cotton has advanced, because the crop 
was short. Supply and demand make the price. 
With the price of cotton at seven cents the South 
did not receive the amount of money they received 
in 1898, with the price at four and one-half cents 
per pound. The same can be said of the corn 
crop. Yet the Republicans will quote prices to you. 



144 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

I advocate the election of Mr. Bryan in pref- 
erence to President McKinley. You all know what 
to expect from a Democratic administration. You 
know what you got from the second administration 
of Cleveland, when the Democrats got control of 
the House and Senate ; that was about the hardest 
times you working people ever saw. You would 
have got the same dose under his first administra- 
tion, if the Democrats had had control of the 
House and Senate so to have changed the tariff 
law. You got it good and hard when they did get 
a clip at you in 1892. If Bryan is elected, you 
will get it again ; but it will be preferable to what 
is being hatched out for you by McKinley and 
Hanna. If Bryan is elected, you can kick him out 
at the end of four years, and it may be possible 
that you can through him cede back Hawaii to 
the Hawaiians, and prevent Puerto Rico, Cuba, and 
the Philippines from becoming a millstone about 
your neck. 

If the Republicans are successful, Cuba will also 
be annexed. You can see it cropping out in the 
Republican press all along the line. Think well 
what this means for you and your children before 
you cast your vote for Wm. McKinley. If we 
cannot prevent the annexation of Cuba, Puerto 
Rico, and the Philippines, except by the election 
of Wm. J. Bryan, I am willing to grease his head 
and swallow him down. If you are satisfied with 
the conditions, vote for McKinley by all means. 



POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 145 

But when you sell your crop, and have only about 
enough to pay your rent and look at your little 
family who have worked so hard in the hot sun 
through the summer, and toiled through the fall 
and winter half-clothed, do not sit down and 
mourn, but tell the boys honestly, "I helped bring 
these conditions about, and am proud of it." Tell 
them that you love them, but you love the poor 
Cubans and Filipinos better. Tell them that you 
cannot afford to send them to school this winter, 
for we must educate the poor savages in those 
countries, and you must pay the taxes so it can be 
done. 

You who toil in the mills and factories and in 
the mines ; you who work in stores and warehouses ; 
you who toil by the day, call your little family 
around you at night, after they have eaten their 
little supper of corn meal mush, and say to them 
that you are sorry they are so poorly clad. Tell 
your wife you are sorry she has to work so hard, 
and have so Httle. Tell her about the poor Cuban 
and Filipino with his mauser. Tell her you wish 
you had money to spare so she could have better 
clothes and more to eat; but tell her it is your 
duty to help pay for the education of those 
savages, even at the sacrifice of your own family. 

Tell your boys you believe in bringing all the 
low and degraded to this country from every land, 
even if it does lower your wages, and they have to 
quit school and work in the mill at $2.10 a week. 



146 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 

Tell them you believe in giving every man from 
foreign countries the right to vote in six months 
after he lands, whether he can read and write or not ; 
but you do not want them to vote until they reach 
the age of twenty-one years. Do this, and when 
you come to die and look upon your little family 
group for the last time, knowing it will take the 
last dollar they have on earth to put you under 
the sod, tell them with your last breath to help the 
poor Cubans and Filipinos, and trust to chance for 
what they get in the future. 



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